Fortune's Fool
by Steph Higior
Summary: Kurt arrives at Dalton Reform under circumstances he'd rather keep to himself, but that doesn't seem to matter when the entire school is interested in him, especially the Warbler's leader, Blaine - and he doesn't know why. AU
1. Prologue

**AUTHOR'S NOTE**

******Welcome to Fortune's Fool - previously Hallways.**

**I'm Steph, and I'm rewriting Hallways into Fortune's Fool, simply because it no longer was how I wanted it to be. It's going to be exactly the same plot, just written slightly more straightforward - so if it was complicated before, hopefully this should be a lot clearer. If it isn't tell me. Apart from it being clearer, there'll be less chapters because the content will be packed into them, so the chapters are going to be a lot longer.**

**So, here it is!**

**Fortune's Fool is a reform!Dalton and a lot of original characters, but it's still based around Kurt and Blaine. **

**I hope you enjoy it, and please review and tell me what you think. **

**Thanks and enjoy,**

**Steph**

* * *

><p><em>Four Years Before<em>

The day that Blaine told the truth was the day that his father called the police.

He had stood there in the kitchen, wringing his hands helplessly, staring at the floor with guilt-ridden eyes, saying things and explaining and talking and talking and totally unable to _stop_.

His father had listened without moving, without reacting, without saying a word. He had simply stood there and watched his son document his confrontations with insanity and fury, and his experience with how compaitble they were with the other.

When Blaine had finally fallen silent, the pause had stretched out into a quiet that had made him nervous, scared, apprehensive.

Then, when they had been both standing there more than long enough, his father had moved over to the phone, picked it up and dialled.

Blaine's heart had sunk in his chest when he realzied his father hadn't understood his pleas after all.

He had called the police anyway.

What was worse was that Blaine had also realized he couldn't simply run away. He had to face the consequences of his actions – his father's eyes had told him that.

The day that Blaine faced the music was the day that his father stopped being safe.

The day that Blaine did the right thing was the day that he was arrested.


	2. Day One

**AUTHOR'S NOTE**

**Day One, ladies and gents. All in one place.**

**Thanks and enjoy,**

**Steph**

* * *

><p><strong>Day One<strong>

_Four Years Later_

It's a sunny day in Ohio, the middle of the hottest summer on record. The sky has decided that clouds were so yesterday and threw them into the proverbial garbage, and the sun wants to see if it's physically possible to fry the land below it within an inch of its life. It hasn't rained for two weeks, and no one can remember it going this long without a sight of the omnipresent drizzle that tends to hover Ohio like an unwanted cold.

The weather men are having a field day.

It's in the middle of nowhere that the rain hasn't touched the ground the longest. The dust spirals up from the ground at the merest hint of a breeze, and the trees look half-dead, stretching shadows of thin and malnourished branches across the cracked earth. A long, barbed-wire fence is situated along a flat stretch of land with the occasional, rather brave and a little foolish tuft of grass that thinks it might have been able to escape the heatwave in the meagre shade the fence posts offer. A gate is punched into the fence, a flimsy-looking thing almost made out of chicken wire, and a sign attached to the gate declares the area inside the fence to be _Dalton Reform School For Boys._ The road itself is a dust track, a broken-up path of old tarmac, and then there's nothing else for miles around.

The fence is _literally _in the middle of nowhere.

And so are the three cars that have just pulled up outside the fence; two of them are police cars that are supposed to be shiny, but the dust gets everywhere and has coated the veichles in a fine veil of brown. The third is a tired-looking red pick-up truck that looks perfectly at home in the almost inhospitable surroundings, and comes to a stop with a ticking sound.

The two people inside the pick-up truck watch warily as a police officer steps out the first car, places his hands on his hips and stares at the fence with an undisgusted look of resignation. The driver of the pick-up is an older man, perhaps in his fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair under a faded blue baseball cap, well worn and well loved. He looks extremely tired as he turns to his passenger, a younger boy. He's a teenager, perhaps seventeen, although he had the appearance of a female thirteen-year old elf. He's pale, poised with perfecly coiffed hair, a white shirt edged delicatly in gold lace, skinny black trousers and the most piercing blue-but-maybe-green-because-it-is-kind-of-hard-to-determine-a-specific-colour eyes. They give him a haughty look, extremely defensive, and make him instinctively tilt his chin up.

The older man sighs, and it's a world-weary sound.

"Now, _listen to me_, Kurt," the older man tells the boy, as though he half-expects the boy to turn his face away completely and ignore him. "If you don't come out of there in one piece, I'm going back to the police and you're going to tell them the _whole _story."

The boy – _Kurt _huffs and glances at the older man for a brief second, then goes back to watching the officer out of the car with an openly hostile expression. "Dad," he says, in a half-shockingly too-high-for-testosterone voice, half-expected pitch-to-match-the-dainty-eyebrows. "We've _been _through this a _thousand _times. I refuse to explain to them what happened, because they will _not _understand. They will be _unable _to see it from my point of view, and I _will _receive a longer sentence, which – _believe me _when I say – is the _last _thing on this planet that I want happening."

"Look, I understand," says his father, "just… I don't know. I still think you should tell them the truth."

Kurt glares at his faher, ice evident in his voice, panic and fear in his eyes. "And _what, _Dad? End up in _juvie? _No _way-_"

"_Alright, _alright. Just… calm down."

Kurt returns to staring resolutely out the window, arms folded carefully over his chest, and the silence ends up saing everything he doesn't particularly wish to voice. His father understands, he knows. He _always _understands.

Then, when the officer turns aorund to face their car and nods, Kurt sighs and opens the passenger door, the heat hitting him in an unbearable wave.

"Just, be _careful," _says his father hasilty.

Kurt turns around, and gives him a wicked but humourless smirk. "When am I _ever _anything but?"

* * *

><p>The receptionist at Dalton really doesn't want to be there.<p>

It's a crap way to spend her summer, she muses miserably over her nail file polishing her already-immaculate manicure into something more managble for typing. When her boyfriend left her in a fit of passion for her best friend, she didn't realize that her source of income had just run off, too. Sure, her job paid decently, but in order to keep up her current lifestyle, she realized she needed something a little better.

When an advert came up in the local magazine for a secretarial post at an all-boys boarding school, she leapt at the opportunity. Those sorts of places are posh, right? Well-behaved rich boys whose mummies and daddies could afford for them to muck around at school.

_God, _was she ever wrong.

Well, at least the bullet-proof glass of the partition doesn't allow too much of the boys' rowdy noise to filter through.

At least it is _bullet-proof._

Oh, _God_, what is she _doing?_

She sighs again at the pink pot of nail polish, and debates whether doing a fifth coat would be counter-productive, or a forth coat would be strong enough to break out of this little slice of prison she had managed to corner herself into.

Suddenly, through the glass, across the hall, the sliding doors open, and in walks two police officers and a rather disgruntled-looking boy.

As the doors shut, the receptionist takes in the appearance of the newcomer, and immediently lables him as _dog food. He'll be eaten alive_, she thinks pitingly, _poor boy. _

The boy wrenches his arms out of the officer on the right and snatches his suitcase off the one on the left, and gives them both a withering glare. "I am _not,_" he informs them, "going to run off under the delusion that I would be able to find somewhere better out in that _dustbowl _of a countryside, than here, where there is _running water and mirrors._"

She takes it back. This boy can clearly hold his own.

With a roll of his startling eyes, the boy stalks – _seriously, _with swinging hips and everything – over to the glass partition and stares coldly at the receptionist.

She swallows. "Hello," she tries brightly, "can I help-"

"Yes," says the boy, "yes, you can. For example, you can start by giving me any paperwork I need to sign, along with a pen that actually works. You can write down on that little slip of paper of yours that I have no background in random agression nor possession of firearms or weapons, and that my crimes are based in violence rather than petty crimes of thievery. You can call for the headmaster to inform him that the boy – Kurt Hummel, you shall require my name – has arrived and demands that he be placed in a room with a full-length mirror and roommates that _shower_. You can tell the boarding teachers that I am no trouble left alone and given a proper wardrobe, and you can remind them that my medical file suggests that I am not left outside without proper protection from the sun for too long. You might probably want to ask the councillers if I am left to my own devices if you have the time, and you can try asking the cooking staff to make something _edible _for my delegation – I am not a vegetarian or a vegan or allergic to any substances, but I am an _extremely _picky eater when it comes to my health and I like to be able to tell what exactly goes into my body, not some undefinable mush that appears as though it came from the rear end of bovine stock. You will probably do _none _of these things but, as these kind officers will tell you, I am absolutely _no _trouble unless provoked, and trust me, _sweetheart_, it doesn't take a lot for me to get riled up."

The silence that follows is stunning.

She blinks.

_Damn._

"Right," she manages, and the boy – _Kurt Hummel _twists a grim smirk of satisfaction in response.

"As I thought," he declares. Both the officers and the receptionist gape at him until he fixes all with an icy glare and a raised eyebrow. "Carry on."

"Um," she says, as the police officers beat a hasty retreat, "you'll, um, have to go down the hall-" here she points down to a pair of doors-"and, um, wait down there."

He nods lazily, and marches off down the corrdior in the direction of the admin section. The receptionist lets go of the breath she had no idea she was holding, and feels a little faint.

Maybe she doesn't need the extra money, after all.

* * *

><p>He hasn't even been away for more than an hour, and yet, Kurt misses his dad.<p>

He sighs.

The hallway that leads up to the headmaster's office is separated from the rest of the compound, for the safety of the administration staff more than anything. To access it, you have to be admitted through a pair of frosted-glass doors framed with pine wood by two identical, tough-looking guards, both holding riot batons, both with fire arms attached to their black belts. The white shirt they wear is short-sleeved, and their arms bulge through the fabric. Kurt suspects both had unattractive buzz-cuts, because upon presenting his badge and after being pat down, one of their hats slipped sideways a little and he spotted dark hair cropped close to the head. It's with some distaste that Kurt passes them, through the now-open doors, into the corridor.

It's a long, white affair, with tiles rather than lino unlike the receptionist's hallway. Administration has chanced decorations, and two glass picture frames hang on the walls in a desperate attempt to look _fashionable_. Kurt's almost tempted to take the frames and smash them while informing the sad person who put them there that _that does not count as fashion, and never try to be in fashion again because you will fail miserably once more. _The lights are slightly fancier, too, and at the end of the hall, another pair of frosted-glass-and-pine doors reside. Kurt assumes that the actual admin office is behind them. On the left wall by the doors, however, are three chairs, like an impromptu waiting room, as though the staff can't bear have the misfits in their presence longer than necessary and shun them into the hallway outside. However, only one chair is standing, to Kurt's mild amusement. The other two are sprawled across the floor haphazardly, apparently sent there by the two boys standing nearby.

Well, one was. The other was pinned to the wall.

Kurt's heart sinks, and he sighs inwardly as he starts walking towards them. Typical, he thinks bitterly. Just _typical_. He shouldn't have expected anything different, really, because every other school is like this one, too, all exactly the same; filled to the brim with _idiots._

The larger, more aggressive boy snarls in the thin one's face. His fists are bunched up in the thin one's shirt around his collar bone, red and white with tension, eyebrows drawn, lips drawn back to display gritted teeth. The thin one's eyes are screwed shut, feet dangling helplessly off the ground, arms hanging limply by his side, head turned slightly to the left in fear; somewhere on the ground, shattered glasses with bent frames lie abandoned on the floor. His body's pressed up against the wall forcefully, and the larger one has clearly smashed him against it in the first place. His nose is trickling blood, down over his scratched cheekbone, dripping down off his chin onto the floor.

Kurt simply stands to the side, watching with mild disinterest.

It's all the same, really. Seen one incapable fighter getting torn to shreds, seen them all.

And he's seen enough to last him a lifetime.

It's just bad manners, he decides absently, to have these sorts of disagreements in the hallways by the office. The large one's muscular, tanned, scarred, a hardened criminal with shaved head and a crooked grimace instead of a smile, wearing a battered leather jacket. He has black eyes that glittered maliciously, an open window to a shallow soul, obviously reacting with sick glee to the violence. He towers over the thin one, who looks so sickly and malnourished that Kurt almost feels ill just looking at him. His sandy-dark-with-grease hair hangs limply in his bloodshot, watering blue eyes, unfocussed and unable to determine exactly who has him pinned to the wall. Any form of authority could wander by at any moment, and both would get reprimanded and punished appropriately, which Kurt doubts either party particularly desires. Still, the large one growls, and the thin one whimpers pitifully, and Kurt is inwardly debating whether he could get past them or if he would have to wait.

"Please," the thin one begs in an unnaturally high voice, slightly nasal; his nose _is_ currently clogged up with blood. "_Please._"

The larger one's mouth twists, as though it's trying desperately to smile but failed. "Please _what?_" he demands in a deep, rough tone promising impending pain and agony. The fists tighten their grip, shoving the thin one further up the wall, and the thin one whines.

"Don't hurt me," he panted.

The larger one laughs, a cruel sound that pitches low and grates over Kurt's finely-tuned ears. He shudders inwardly, regretting that he has ever had to experience such torture on his poor, defenceless senses. The larger one leans his face in, and the thin one whimpers again. "No," says the larger one.

Sneaking past sounds like an excellent idea.

Kurt holds his breath, and starts shifting slowly past them.

It doesn't really work when the larger one hears him – perhaps catches his scent? – and whips his head round to glare at Kurt, foot in the air, expression identical to that of a rabbit caught by a fox in tractor headlights.

Kurt freezes, stomach dropping, heart stopping then starting up again five times as fast as before.

Oh, sweet merciful _Lord._

The larger boy glares at him, then suddenly grins, showing crooked teeth that makes Kurt shiver despite himself. Honestly, doesn't he know _anything_ about basic oral hygiene?

Checking himself, Kurt straightens out, puts both feet on the floor, one hand on his hip, and raises an eyebrow meaningfully at the larger boy. In the best please-bitch voice Kurt can muster under the pressure, he snaps, "Take a picture, it lasts longer."

The shock of the statement works momentarily, because the larger boy blinks as though he's been tasered by a mouse, or is trying to clear his waterlogged brain. Kurt can see the thin one trying to wriggle around in order to reposition a view for himself this insolent new comer.

Sadly, the moment doesn't last long, because the larger one decides that Kurt makes a far more interesting chew toy than the thin one and ceremoniously drops the thin one. He crashes to the floor in a spectacular array of flailing limbs and smeared blood, whimpering as he makes contact with the tiles.

The larger one, however, doesn't notice any of this because he approaches Kurt with a wicked smirk and raised fists.

_Seriously_.

And just as the larger one was about to lunge at Kurt and pin _him_ to the wall, Kurt raises his hand.

"Now, listen Godzilla," he commands in an icy tone that rapidly melts due to the impending fire. "I am _not _one of your playthings that you can just throw around, okay? This shirt is _Gucci_, and if you don't even understand _that, _then there is something seriously lacking in your education, but allow me to spell it out for you, anyway. You do not _touch _this shirt, you do not simply just _pick _me up and _throw _me into a wall where this could get dusty or – God forbid – _ripped. _If that happens, I will take your genitals and I will attach them to a milk-sucking machine used on farms on female cows to extract milk, and I will force-feed you your own sperm via the medium of milkshake. _Understand?_"

The larger one's eyes widen and he blinks, dumbstruck and maybe a little scared. He stumbles backwards a little, and nods numbly.

Kurt smiles in satisfaction. "Excellent," he informs the larger boy, and struts over to the only standing chair, in which he places himself, crosses one leg over the other, and gives the larger boy another ice-queen-stare-down.

The larger boy backs away, turns, and legs it down the corridor, flinging the door open in his desperation to escape.

Kurt supresses a smile. The old sperm-cow threat always seems to work.

Then, he hears a squeak and he looks down at the floor.

Ah. He had forgotten about the thin boy.

He watches motionless as the thin boy hauls himself up to stand, a bloody hand staining the wall as he leans against it for support, the other going to his face to rub his eyes wearily. He seems to be in a great amount of pain, because as his legs straighten out, he grimaces. He then takes his hand off the wall, and openly gapes at Kurt.

Kurt raises an eyebrow at the thin boy.

"Can I help you?" he asks mockingly.

The thin boy glances down at the tiles, then up at Kurt again.

Kurt's facial expression hasn't changed.

The thin boy glances at the tiles again, mumbles something under his breath, and turns around, staggering down the corridor quickly and quietly, eager to be away from Kurt's questionable company.

Kurt rolls his eyes. Really, what was that boy expecting? Kurt isn't some hero that protects the innocent and weak, especially not in here because chances are, there _are _no innocents. He's not going to get involved in whatever display of power that was, because he's not interested in getting mixed up in the hierarchy the school _inevitably _has.

Not happening. _Never_ happening.

And so that is how, all of three-point-four seconds after Kurt has finally sat down, the fates decide to be explicitly rude to him _again_, and a severe looking woman with platinum blond hair in a bun and black-rimmed glasses opens the office door and glares at him.

"Kurt Hummel?"

Kurt doesn't respond, merely absorbs her outfit. She's wearing one of those leg-hugging black skirts that makes it to her knees and decides to give up, a light blue blouse, and black heels. It is all very nondescript.

She opens the door wider. "You can come in now," she says, and turns to leave, expecting Kurt to follow.

Kurt sighs _again_, hauls himself out of his chair, and sweeps into the office, shutting the door behind him.

* * *

><p>In the vast grounds of Dalton, there's a section for everything they need. There's the boarding houses, the mess hall, the admin, and then the classrooms. Most of the classrooms are filled with tattered books and graffiti on tables and broken bits of chalk and whiteboard pens, but in a few, there's nothing but shattered wood from desks and a few straight-backed chairs that are extremely uncomfortable to sit on for longer than twenty minutes. One abandoned classroom in particular is filled with about twenty of these monstrosities and about ten rescued tables that are in decent condition. The curtains are shut and the door has lost any form of formal markings, simply a painted bird in red paint underneath the glass panel.<p>

The teachers have supposedly forgotten about this room, but it's more likely that they _want _to forget it exists.

Or paid to.

Either or.

The air inside the room is smoky and dark and filled with awful sorts of promises. The haze gets thicker when there's a meeting held, when all the chairs are taken up and there's no floor space, but today, there's only four people inside the room. One is sat on a table, staring unblinkingly at the one sat at the teacher's desk like he owns the classroom. One is stood by the blacked-out window, peering through the gap out at the daylight with a strange expression on his face. The features of the boys are hidden in the shadows, but the one at the teacher's desk is clearly taller than the other two.

The last boy is under the teacher's desk, at the tall boy's feet.

It's silent for a moment; save for a few wet sounds and harsh panting that is quickly silenced again. None of the boys visible move.

The boy sat on the desk staring at the tall boy eventually swallows, and blinks slowly. "Where's Anderson?"

The tall boy shrugs, and waves a hand at the other boy, the red glow of a cigarette following his movements. "What does it matter?"

The other boy blinks again. "He's in charge, Ev. Even if you don't like it, you follow his rules."

The tall boy, Ev, shrugs again. "Not everyone's a pet, Rob." The boy at the window laughs, and it's a little cruel and mocking, enough to make Ev frown at him. "What's your point?"

"My point," the boy at the window says, not turning away from the window to grace Ev with a proper eye-to-eye conversation, "is that maybe you've got so _many _pets is because you're scared of _being _one."

Rob chuckles, but Ev glares at the boy. "Shut up," he says darkly.

The boy raises an eyebrow, but still doesn't turn. "Hit a nerve, have I, Evan?"

"Come _on," _Rob says before Evan can provide a retort, "Anderson leaves us alone for five minutes, and already you're staring fights. _Stop. _You want to be on top, Ev, you've got to prove to him you're good enough."

There's a silence, a pause, long enough for Evan to shut his eyes and groan slightly.

The boy at the window smirks again. "You won't get on top, you know."

Evan opens his eyes long enough, but he smiles a little. "Didn't take you for a betting man, Sam."

Sam turns and his smirk gets wider. "The odds are good."

Evan's smile gets wider, and his eyes roll back a little as his head hits the back of the chair. His mouth falls open, panting slightly, lips slightly shiny from licking them. "The plan's foolproof. You wanted in, you stay in."

Sam snorts as the door opens, and in walks a hulking mass of leather jacket and teeth that can't smile, panting slightly from running.

"New kid," the thug manages, "new kid in admin."

Instantly, Evan pushes away from the desk, ignoring the cry from underneath it, and his hands fly to his trousers long enough to cover himself, fly undone. "And?" he asks impatiently. "Is he what we're looking for?"

Breathlessly, the thug nods.

Evan's face twists into a triumphant grin. "_Excellent," _he breathes. "Just _excellent."_

Rob stands, all business now. "What do we do?"

"We put the plan into action," Evan says. "We give the signal, and we find Anderson."

Rob nods again, and Sam sighs a little, amused.

But Evan doesn't care. "Gentleman," he announces, "I believe it has begun."

* * *

><p>Somewhere on the other side of campus, in the basement underneath the mess hall that no one ever goes into, probably because they've forgotten or want to forget or have been paid to, a thin boy with straggly blond hair and a broken nose runs into a dark room full of cigarette smoke and a figure sat on a table cross-legged in the half-light.<p>

The thin boy pants, trying to catch his breath. "New kid," he says around trying to control his asthma, "new kid in admin."

There's a barely-there pause, and then the figure leans forward, enough so the thin boy can see dark spiky hair with rainbow tips, a dye job gone wrong.

"Really?" the figure breathes.

The thin boy nods, trembling slightly.

"And the Warblers, are they-"

The thin boy shrugs slightly. "Probably."

The figure leans back, but not before the thin boy catches a distortion of shadows under the figure's nose, enough to look like a smile. "Then, we shall stick to the plan," the figure declares, "but I heed your warning. I thank you."

The thin boy gives the figure a half-bow and retreats out the room.

It's quiet and still for a moment, enough for the figure to absorb the information.

"_Fascinating."_

* * *

><p>It was around an hour later when Kurt sits down on his bed, blinking.<p>

The administration sat him down in their office, and he was introduced to the head of Dalton, a rather severe-looking man called Mr. Phillips with thick ginger hair, almost black, beady eyes, freckled skin that Kurt personally thought was crying out for a skin cancer check, beige shorts, a white t-shirt with – cringe – sweat marks under the armpits, sturdy trainers, and a baseball cap with the Dalton crest on it. The whole effect was somewhat similar to an extremely strict sports teacher; whether that was a good thing or not was yet to be decided.

He had been stared at, given the once over. Kurt had bristled.

"Now," Mr Phillips had started, but Kurt had interupted him before the monolgue had gotten too monotone.

"I don't have a phone, a laptop, I have a photo album that, no, I haven't used to smuggle drugs into the building. I am intolerant of alcohol and uninterested in taking drugs – it would _ruin _my complexion. I don't carry weapons or firearms – honestly, the receptionist should have told you all this, are you people _really _that incapable of exchanging information? Rhetorical question," Kurt had said in answer to Mr. Phillips' open mouth. "I would like my schedule to be changed so that I take no French, for I am fluent and it would be a waste of my time. I would prefer to have my counciling on an afternoon, if you please, and I am fully aware of the uniform I am expected to wear. I can't say I'm exactly _impressed _with the design, but if I am obliged to, then I have no other choice, do I? I will not join any club, sports or otherwise, I would rather room on my own but there's a rather slim chance of that happening, so I would rather have roommates that left me alone. Do not expect me to join in with group activites, although you will find that I work _extraordinarily _well on my own. I will keep my keycard around my neck, I will padlock my precious belongings in my suitcase, I will not leave the grounds unauthorized or unaccompanied. I will not knowingly break any of the other rules you will present me, period." He had blinked innocently. "Have I covered everything?"

Mr Phillips had shut his mouth and nodded quickly.

Kurt had smiled, satisfied. "Well. Lead on, great leader."

He was introduced, walked through the members of staff one by one: Miss Brady, second-in-command, a large woman with impressive thighs, a prodominant nose and an apparent incapability to smile; Mr. Mars, in charge of education, a short grumpy man in a suit and round glasses who constantly scowled; Mrs. Fellows, the dorm mistress, the woman who had invited Kurt in and the only one who even attempted to try and twist the concerns of her mouth skywards; Mr. Taylor, part of the police force, a beefy imposing man with a physicality that Kurt suspected could easily twist frozen metal simply by crooking his finger; and young Mr. Griffin, a tall, thin person with a bending spine and twisting hands, introduced as the intern. They handed Kurt his timetable, a copy of the rules, his locker code, a dorm key with a number attached and a reminder of expectations and disappointment.

Kurt had stared at them all when they had fallen silent, and after a moment's pause, Mrs. Fellows coughed uneasily and dismissed him, informing him that, as it is Sunday, classes start tomorrow and she expected him to attend them all.

Which is where he found himself now, stood outside the admin section, staring the courtyard and wondering whether he deserves what happens to him.

It's a large square space, and the ground is covered in a mixture of concrete, tarmac, chewing gum and spray paint. In some places, it's uneven and clearly replaced, and in one spot, Kurt can see it had been ripped up and no one bothered to put it back again. There are some metal picnic benches, brutalized by the hands of clearly-bored-but-not-that-artistically-inclined teenagers with nothing better to do with their time other than abuse pieces of outdoor furniture. Behind him, the filthy building he has just run out of stretches up menacingly, a grey thing with square, barred windows that are covered in tiny squashed bugs with misgivings of freedom. There's also a balcony that appears to be used for some kind of assembly, in order to address the masses. To his left, the building continues, minus the windows; it's just a giant grey wall, covered in graffiti and pen marks, but there's also a basketball hoop without a net, worn and battered. To his right, he spots a different sort of building, a three-story, red-bricked affair with more windows than the main building. The double doors at the bottom are thick, sturdy-looking things made from dark wood, and the curtains he can see are standard red and rather unattractive. He sighs. He should've expected the dorms to be decorated by someone who obviously is missing the section in their brain that screams _taste _and _coordination_. In front of him is another barbed wire fence, and on the other side is a road, and on the other side of the road is a grass pitch, stretching as far as the eye could see.

And on the other side of that – if Kurt raises his hand to shield his eyes from the glaring sun and squints - is a red brick wall.

At this distance, it looks like a red line highlighting the horizon.

Kurt suddenly feels claustrophobic. He drops his hand and shuts his eyes, willing the image of a red line to disappear from the inside of his eyelids. His hands balls into fists by his side, and he shakes slightly.

He didn't like feeling trapped.

_God, _he misses his dad. And Mercedes, and Finn, and Carole, and _damn_, even _Rachel._ He misses his old life, and how everything used to be, before.

Before.

_Retrospect is a wonderful thing, _he thinks bitterly.

His hand tightens around the suitcase handle, and he sighs, yet again, because _really, _he can't imagine his life getting any worse. He's survived everything, right? _Everything. _All he needs to do is switch off and survive this, too.

Kurt walks off through the courtyard, the suspiciously empty courtyard. Where is everyone? He checks the slim silver wristwatch on his left arm, and it declares that it is ten in the morning, and that this space should be filled with boys enjoying the heat.

But, there's no one.

How peculiar.

But, no, Kurt can't afford to get interested. He's only supposed to survive.

He stops walking outside the boarding house door, and raises a hand to punch in the number code into the pad on the right hand side of the panelling.

"S'not locked."

Kurt whirls around, hand flying to his throat in shock and surprize.

It was a few of the leather jackets, he notes in surprize. There were two tall boys standing around a smaller third one. The one on the left was tanned and had short, spikey blond hair with a twisted smirk, hands stuffed into pockets. The one on the right had better hair, a brunet with some semblance of style and a kinder-looking face, although the expression on it certainly didn't help him.

But the boy in the middle, _oh-_

A kid slightly shorter than himself with skin the colour of milky coffee and caramel ice cream and thick chocolate hair that curls desperately away from his skull, as though the strands are trying to escape. Two thick, almost triangular eyebrows are placed strategically above a pair of amber, honey, _gold_ eyes as sweet as his voice, so bright they seem liquid in the bright sunshine. They are wide, however, and despite the fact that two hands are stuffed in jean pockets – jeans, Kurt notices, that cling to his legs like a hysterical toddler onto his mother's ankles and he wears them like _sin_ – one of his black Converses is slightly raised, as though he's placing weight onto one foot, ready to run at the first sign of trouble. But the leather jacket Frodo wears over the white V-necked t-shirt on his chest is battered and scarred, but fits him _wonderfully_, as though it's tailored to his exact measurements. It makes him look more muscular, less fragile, more capable of breaking ligaments and tearing off limbs – more so than Kurt, in any case.

The first thought Kurt has is that he looked _delicious_.

The second thought is that people don't generally tend to just magically _appear _in a previously empty courtyard unless they were _following _someone.

The third, slightly less demanding thought muses that the boy Kurt remembers pulling off the thin one in the admin corridor also wore a leather jacket, and if Kurt looks carefully, he remembers seeing the same painted red bird on the right shoulder. They're together, certainly, but what could they possibly want with _him? He _just got here.

The second thought tells the third to go sit in the corner and play with the crayons and glitter glue.

The short boy – _the gorgeous one_, Kurt's mind reminds him slyly – stops looks shocked and narrows his eyes into a self-satisfied smile.

The arrogance is almost hot.

Almost.

"Can I help you, gentlemen?" Kurt asks stiffly.

The two taller boys glance briefly at the short one, and, _oh, _the short one's in charge, okay. The short one shrugs slowly, smirk widening. "Heard that there was a new kid on campus."

Kurt raises an eyebrow. "_And?"_

Goblin Boy swaggers forward a little, hands stuffed into jacket pockets, evidentially amused. "Well, we just wanted to introduce ourselves, being polite and all. We're not _animals_, now, are we?"

Kurt ignores the affirming grins from the cronies and instead focuses his attention on the cocky little _bastard _who's invading his space bit by bit. "Could've fooled me," he grits out.

Hobbit chuckles. "Now, now, spitfire," he croons, "play nicely."

"That would be remarkably simple," Kurt fires back acidly, "if there's wasn't some _asshole _hanging around in my face."

"Don't like people?"

"Not ones who don't comprehend when I would much rather be left _on my own._"

"Shame."

"Yes, what an incredible pity, _poor you."_

Kurt starts to vaguely wonder if Short Sticks is impervious to sarcasm.

"This is Sam"- he points at the blond, who grins cheekily – "and Rob"- the brunet doesn't move, just regards him with a wary eye. "We're the Warblers," the Jacket says confidentially. "And just so that you're aware, we're sort of in charge here, so if you do something that we don't like, we'll let you know."

Kurt wants to laugh, because _really. _"Let me inform you of something," he says airily, "if I do something that _you _don't like, it's because I want to, and it's got nothing to do with the likes of _you-_"

The Jacket smirks. "We'll see."

Kurt throws up a hand and an eyebrow of steel. "Let me _finish_," he says, glaring. "It will have nothing to do with you, and you can just _fuck off._"

The Jacket, however, has gotten over the initial intimidation stage and is now openly smirking at Kurt, whose face was now set in an almost permenant ice-queen stare in an attempt to look threatening. He takes that few strides closer, until he invades Kurt's personal space properly, and leers at Kurt's expression. They're almost nose-to-nose now, and Kurt's trying to keep a straight face while _not _getting distracted by the close proximity of this mind-numbingly _gorgeous_ boy, who smells like spices and cinnamon hot chocolate and _so, so good-_

He holds his breath instead and stares resolutely over the top of his head, instead of chancing getting lost in his eyes.

But-

"Is that a promise, spitfire?" mumurs the boy, smug with pride and amusement, but something else altogether, something that Kurt could just be able to-

-_no. _He's _not _looking.

Kurt huffs and turns his head away fully, crossing his arm over his head and trying very hard not to think about his arm accidentally brushing against the boy's in the process because, _God damn it, _he's trying to be _angry _here. "Get lost," he mutters.

"Nah," says the boy, "I'm liking it here."

"Get _lost,_" Kurt repeats, louder and more agressively, his wrath making it safe to stare at the other boy. "Leave and take your possy with you, or else I'll _make _you."

The boy laughs, and so do his taller friends. "How's a dainty little slip like you going to make me do something I don't want to do?"

Oh, the irony. Kurt feels his expression twist into something cruel and dark and a little bit mocking, because he can still hear the screams inside his head, and oh, these boys had _no idea. _"Trust me. I'd be _more _than capable."

The boy smiles, and Kurt ignores the way it makes his stomach turn to goo. This is his weapon, he reminds himself, this is the charistmatic way he charms people into doing his bidding, like the Pied Piper. Like _hell_ he's going to fall for the undeniable but dangerous charm of this _child. _Best thing he can do is leave a warning to stay away from him. Kurt wants _nothing _to do with them.

Maybe he'd have to draw a diagram.

"Let me guess," the boy drawls, "it's got something to do with that pretty scar you've got there."

_Damn._

He'd forgotten about the stitches in his eyebrow.

There's nothing for it, then.

Kurt places both his hands on the chest of the short, cocky, sexy man-child and – _ignore how warm it feels, how you just want to pull him in and – _and shoves him _hard_ away from him, making him trip over backwards into his friends and fall ass-first into the concrete. Delighting in the resulting whimper of pain – _and there's no way that it sounds just a little hot – _Kurt smirks and stalks over until he's leaning down over the boy condesendingly-

-and says, "stay out of my way if you value your reproduction skills, _sunshine._"

Then Kurt has to retreat _quickly_, because the look that the boys are giving him are a little short of murderous and the look that the short boy is giving him is a little over awed and _slightly-turned-on_, or maybe that's just inside Kurt's head. He glares at them all, and stalks over to his bag, pushes open the door – the Jackets were right, the door wasn't locked – and marched off into the boarding house, ears ringing, blood singing with adreniline.

_Jesus._

Then, suddenly, just before the door swings closed-

-"Name's Blaine, gorgeous."

Kurt freezes.

He swallows thickly and tries to stop panicking.

"D'you have one that goes with that sexy ass of yours?"

He turns to see _Blaine _standing on the other side of the door with a delicious, cocky, arrogant smirk and a wink in those glinting, mischievious honey eyes.

Kurt straightens up, and lifts his chin.

"Kurt Hummel, asshole," he replies, and the door slams shut.

_Well._

Wasn't _that _an experience.

It's with great trepidition and difficulty that Kurt heaves his luggage up the flight of stairs, panting as he goes. He receives looks from the boys hanging around in the hallways, leaning on walls, talking, shouting, fists flying, figures flashing past Kurt's eyes, unable to keep up with them. One boy jumps from the top of the first landing down to the ground floor and keeps on running, despite almost running headfirst into a wall. A heartbeat later, another boy comes thudding down the stairs, yelling profanities and promises of shed blood at the top of his voice.

Kurt inwardly sighs, and keeps heaving.

His assigned room is on the second floor; the landing breaks off into two opposite directions, creating one straight, unbroken hallway green, gold-numbered doors contrasting against the white plaster of the walls. It's lino beneath Kurt's boots, not the hard clink of tiles, that creates the muffled footsteps as he walks down the right side of the corridor, the numbers increasing, odds and evens on separate sides. He walks past tall boys, short boys, thin and fat ones, half-naked lads keen on standing in doorways arguing with their neighbours, one boy even leaps down from where he was dangling on the hallway's swinging lights – they all give Kurt a side glance and a slight frown from curiosity. Being under that sort of intense scrutiny makes Kurt's back straighten out and the hairs on his neck prickle, his chin tilt upwards, and his eyes focus on the door at the end. When he reaches it, he checks his key's number, slots the key into the door, turns it, jiggles it around a little, manages to open said door, wheels his bags in, and shuts the door a little desperately.

He turns and faces his temporary lodgings.

It severly depresses him.

It's a small room that should've really belonged to a two-star hotel, he thinks bitterly, one with a large window on the opposite wall to the door with those tacky, mass-produced red curtains hanging haphazardly from the railing. The floor is cream carpet heavily abused from years of rowdy, hormonal teenage boys spilling guts and vomit and blood and a-stain-he-really-hoped-was-something-like-milk-or-tipex, the ceiling the same pasty colour as the four, rather obvious box-like walls. There are four bunk beds with cupboards at the headboard by either wall, creating a miniture pathway down the middle to the window, desks and chairs behind Kurt, pushed up against the space either side of the door. There's no obvious bathroom, child-locks on the windows, and a fire extinguisher by one of the desks. All in all, it's small and dingy and Kurt feels a wave of nausea rise up in his throat tasting like suspiciously like the coffee he had for breakfast.

He glances at the beds; the two top ones are clearly inhabited, because they are both messy and covered in clothes and if Kurt gets close enough – not that he would, he values his life a little more than that, thank you very much – it smells a little funny. So, instead, he ducks his head down slightly and takes a good look at the bottom bunks. One is neat, pyjama trousers folded crisply against the pillow, and it all looks very civilized. Kurt is almost tempted to see what _that_ bed smelt like, but he remembers privacy and decides against it. Instead, he turns his head, and the other bed, the one on the left, looks forlorn and utterly abandoned.

Right. That is his, then.

He leaves his suitcases in the middle of the room, strides over to the bed – _his _bed – and sits down with a _thump_ and a _squeak_ and a huff.

He blinks several times, then sighs.

He really did feel like bawling his eyes out.

It had been a long start to the day.

And then, because the gods decided they hadn't had enough of screwing with Kurt's head, the door of the room swings open, and in walks a short doll-like blond holding a wad of tissue paper to his nose.

Kurt wants to _scream_.

The boy is _tiny,_ with pale, perfect skin almost as well-cared for as his own, large and round dark blue eyes framed with the thickest set of lashes Kurt's ever seen. He has small wrists and tiny hands, and all of his uniform is too big for him, swamping his small figure. His nose, though, is _covered _in blood, the tissue not doing a sufficient job of mopping it up.

The boy freezes when he spots Kurt, and Kurt stiffens his back in response.

The door shuts, cutting the noise from the hallway off and leaving the two inhabitants of the room in utter silence.

The eyes dart over him and widen slightly.

Perhaps Kurt should introduce himself.

Or maybe his leave-me-very-well-alone-and-we-will-not-end-up-killing-each-other speeches to cut through the quiet. Either would work.

But then, the child sighs sadly, sniffs and slowly shuffles forward, staring anywhere but Kurt, although Kurt feels as though he's being watched from the corner of eyes. It's not a pleasant sensation. He moves over to the bunk Kurt's sat on, reaches the ladder, puts the drenched tissue in his mouth – Kurt wants to _throw up _now, his roommate knows no _hygene – _and climbs up the ladder.

Kurt stares at him and continues to gaze absently at the ladder, even when he can hear a slight groan emit from somewhere near the ceiling and the squeaking from the bed above him desists.

Well. This is awkward.

He sist there for a total of ten seconds, wondering if he should say something, _anything, _then maybe it won't be so damned _quiet._

Kurt is about to open his mouth when a sudden, rather _loud_ pounding starts on the door, making him jump a mile. The whimpering starts again from above him, as loud as before but consistant, flowing underneath the violent bashing on the door.

He stares at the door, mouth open in shock, then stands up off the bed in half a mind to open it and to tell the jerk to _get lost _else find himself in a _world _of pain.

"_Don't!" _whines a muffled voice, not as high as Kurt's but still enough to pass as feminine.

Bewildered, Kurt turns to the lump hiding under the pillow on the top bunk and opens his mouth to tell the child _exactly _what he's going to do if anyone tells him what to do, apparent infantile state be damned. He's almost finished forming the first of _many _corse words when he's interupted for the second time in ten minutes.

The pounding's stopped.

It's now eerily quiet.

_Weird._

Kurt frowns, thoroughly confused, and turns to glance at the lump. "What…" he says, hands on hips, eyebrows raised, because he really wants to know what's going _on_. The lump merely quivers in response, and Kurt opens his mouth yet _again_ to shout when-

-fate decides to shake things up again-

-the door _flies _open-

-Kurt turns to see the newcomer, mouth open, ready to scream down the chaos and attempt to bring order-

-when his stomach plummets-

-heart starts beating double time-

-and Blaine grins at Kurt from the doorway.

"Hello, spitfire," he says.

* * *

><p>Kurt's mouth falls open, and he wants to smash his head against something. A wall, perhaps, or a door, something flat that could maybe knock him out until he turns eighteen in a few months.<p>

Long enough to pretend that this _isn't happening._

"I _just _told you," Kurt grits through his teeth, "to leave me _alone. _Are you incapable of processing simple instructions?"

The boy struts – fucking _struts _into the room, swinging the door shut behind him. He stops a few steps away from Kurt and smirks.

Kurt's stomach drops and he clenches his jaw.

"So," Frodo says. "The rumours _are _true, after all."

Kurt's been here for all of a morning, and already this place feels the need to define him. Rumours about him? How could they _know anything? _And how much time does the population need for information to transfer from mouth to mouth?

How true was any of it?

Kurt sticks out his chin and regards Blaine through narrow eyes. "Rumours?" he sasks indifferently, trying very, very hard to keep what remains of his cool.

Blaine shrugs, and the leather on his shoulders move with him like amour, transferring his weight from one foot to the other. "Stories fly like birds around this place," he says, one hand going into a jacket pocket. "Everyone knows where the new kid sleeps now."

_Oh, _how funny. Kurt snorts. He can't exactly _help _it, but the threat makes him giggle inwardly anyway. "A we-know-where-you-live move?" he asks mockingly, trying very hard to not outright laugh at Blaine. "_Seriously?"_

Blaine smirks, eyes sparkling. "No." He moves over across the floor and sits down on-

-oh, _no. _No _way._

Blaine's bed is the unbelievably neat bottom bunk.

Next to _Kurt's._

Jesus, as if his day couldn't get any worse, he had to go and have a fight with the guy who shares his room. Great. The child model and the gangster. Fantastic.

Blaine's mouth twitches upwards as he takes in Kurt's gobsmacked expression. "Close your mouth," he childs lightly. "I'd say it was unattractive, but…" And here the amber eyes trail over Kurt's ridgid posture with an appraising look, a strangely warm, _enticing _glint in them, behind the hostility.

Kurt fights the impulse to shiver.

But the eyes come back up to his own, and Kurt can see the promises there, mocking, almost _too _lewd to hide something else. Something Blaine isn't too keen on Kurt seeing. "But I don't like to lie," Blaine finishes.

-_too early seen unknown, and known too late-_

Kurt swallows.

But Blaine blinks, and those eyes move on.

"Besides," the boy continues, rocking backwards on the bed slightly, hands going out to stabilize him. "No one would ever make that threat to you, because you live with _me._"

Kurt crosses his arms, and raises an eyebrow. "And what are you, Mafia boss?" Oh, _yes, _ladies and gentlemen, Kurt's bitch game is most definitely _on._

Blaine cocks his head slightly to the side, and Kurt's almost forcibly reminded of a curious puppy with floppy ears and a tail that never stops wagging.

In a leather jacket.

_Stop _that.

Blaine's mouth quirks up. "Yes," he says slowly, and Kurt's heart drops through his chest like the Titanic.

_Oh._

Right, then.

"How's a little guy like you on top?" he asks icily.

Blaine chuckles. "Oo, _feisty_. I like that."

"Take a long walk off a short pier."

"Calm down, spitfire, you're not fighting any wars here."

Kurt exhales angrily. "Don't _call _me that."

"Why? Hit a nerve?"

Because it's his first day, and he doesn't want to do something he knows he'll regret. Because it reminds him of the wars he's had to fight. Because everytime Blaine does, something weird happens to his insides and now he's not sure if they're all in working order for lunch.

Kurt huffs. "_No._ I just don't like it." He stalks over to his bags and drags them over to the wardrobe to unpack, attempting to readjust his shields. If Blaine is in charge of the top gang here, then he was more likely to get away with unpleasant things than not. Kurt's done this before, he knows the price of power and what it does to the people subjected to it. He doesn't like the fact that he has to share a room with such a person, because of the things he could potentially get caught up in. He made a promise to his dad.

He isn't going to get involved in their politics.

He shoves clothes into various parts of the furniture and keeps his precious and irreplaceable items locked away in the suitcase, like his Marc Jacobs scarf.

He would _die _before letting anyone touch it.

There's a squeak of bedsprings from behind him, a rustle of paper, and an overexaggerated and dramatic sigh. "Well," says Blaine languidly. "Don't let me stop you. Please, carry on. The view is just _excellent."_

Kurt just snarls to himself, and mentally counts the ways he can cause the cocky little-so-and-so some well-deserved _pain._

He gets to number one hundred and siz while trying to find somewhere to hag his shirts – the inventive method of tying his arms to a tactor's back bumper and his legs onto a concrete wall and starting the engine whilst toppling the wall – when the bedsprings creak again, and then there's an accopanying rustling of clothes and-

-_oh God, _some _groans_ as though Blaine's stretching his back.

Which Kurt's not going to turn around and see.

No.

He has restraint.

But before he can find pull himself together, it stops, and Blaine sighs. "Well," he says, "as fasinating as this has been, I think I'm going to go get some lunch. Rosey here'll take you down if you're hungry for food, although I'm sure I can help you if you're hungry for _other _things."

_Why- _"Please stop talking before you put me off eating _forever_," he snaps in reply, and all the hears is Blaine's condesending chortle before the door opens and shuts.

Kurt breathes a sigh of relief, and turns to face his bunk, and the lump still situated on top.

"So," he addresses the bedclothes, "you must be _Rosey_. Kurt. Pleasure."

The lump quivers in response.

"Kurt Hummel," it mutters.

Kurt stiffens. "What?"

The clothes rustle, and the blond-headed cherub pokes his head out, sniffling, blood smeared all over his face, making him look even more forlorn. "You're Kurt Hummel," he says quietly.

Kurt raises an eyebrow. "Yes, I am."

The blond nods, more to himself than anything. "Caro Rose," he replies shyly, "although it's just Caro. Anderson calls me Rosey, though, so you can call me that too."

Kurt snorts, watching how the blond eyes light up slightly at the sound. "No, thank you," he says, "I am not associating myself with that _boy._"

"So…" Caro chews his lip carefully, hesitantly. "You're not going to make a deal with them?"

Kurt blinks, hand flying to a hip. "I'm sorry?"

Caro pulls himself out of the blankets more, enough to crawl to the end of the bed closest to Kurt and stare at him with wide, curious eyes. "Taylor says that you're thinking of making a deal with them."

The boy might as well be speaking another language for all Kurt understands. "Who?"

Caro frowns. "Evan Taylor. The Warbler's second."

Blaine's lieutenant. "How quickly do rumours start in this place?"

Caro giggles – honestly _giggles _like he's seven cashing pigeons across a park – and his hands scrunch around the crimson tissue they're twisting. "Too fast to keep up."

Kurt sighs. "Great."

Caro crawls over to the ladder, climbs down, and skips-shuffles over to Kurt, grabbing his sleeve with his free hand a tugging on it gently like a toddler. The kid only comes up to Kurt's chest, he's _that _small, and now he's closer Kurt can tell the designer clothes he's wearing haven't been taken care of as they should've been, that the hair had been washed recently and that his nails are in perfect condition. "Come on," he says shyly, as though he isn't used to giving orders. "Let's go get lunch."

* * *

><p>Evan Taylor stands outside in the courtyard, under one of the trees, perfectly still and unnoticed, and watches as Blaine Anderson leaves the boarding house and swaggers over to the main building, most probably to go to the mess hall for lunch.<p>

He takes a drag from the cigarette in his hand and lets his arm fall, enjoying the way the smoke burnt in his chest, burning him from the inside out, warm and almost comforting.

Blaine hates the way he smokes, like Evan's mouth is pulling the paper apart, almost ravishing it to get to the toxins on the inside, like he wants to take it to bed and to spend so long pulling it to pieces, to ruin it and then to build it back up again, to destroy it but make sure it enjoys every last minute of it; it's the same way he kisses his deals, he way his tongue tears into their mouths and to claim every last part of them, enough to leave them panting and begging, never letting them fall until they knew exactly what they were falling to, make them want nothing else, and then how could he refuse them?

He lets them fall.

But he never picks them back up again.

He takes another pull on the smoke, and curls his tongue around his teeth into a forced half-smile. It's funny how Blaine never asked. Even when they were fucking each other into the matress every night – well, Blaine fucked Evan, but then Evan wanted _more – _he never asked Evan why he destroyed so many people, just let him do it, telling him he shouldn't really, but never asked _why._

Blaine opens the door and walks inside, leaving it swinging in lost momentum.

A boy like that – not a man, just a simple child couldn't be in control of such power. He couldn't just leave it alone and never do anything with it, because then the power builds up into a sparkling, crackling, _beautiful _lightning storm and he would have done _nothing _to stop it.

But Evan…

_He _would _never _let that happen.

Evan lets the cigarette fall from his fingers, and the ashes smoulder in the dirt.

The plan had to be changed.

And this is why.

Because Blaine doesn't _care_.

* * *

><p>Ohio is a relatively unassuming state. Quiet, unassuming, and fairly dull; the inhabitants are generally pensioners on farms living out the dream retirement, or large families who can't find homes in other states that are large enough to house their rowdy families. The small towns that the population resided in are closed off and self-sustaining. Most people are related to one another in some way, your neighbour has been across the road for your whole entire life, and anyone who left called a "dreamer". When they come back, they're treated as outcasts, a soldier shot down by his legion for deserting his post. Everyone protects everyone else – it's more than likely you are somehow family anyway.<p>

So, naturally, the few teenagers there are get very, _very_ bored.

There isn't a lot to do in Ohio for teenagers that hadn't been set up in the Eighties or done a thousand times already. Most forms of amusement come once a year, or are run by your grandmother, or is deemed so uncool that only freckled nerds with head braces would even _consider_ it as a boredom killer. However, because everyone knows everyone else, the teenagers are quite happy to do nothing, and not even try of thinking of other ways, more _inventive_ ways to pass the time. Still, now and again, someone tries thinking outside the very, very small box they are presented with; more often than not, it doesn't go down particularly well.

Once in a blue moon, someone goes the extra mile.

It shocks the officials, their parents, their neighbours, their teachers, and they're shunned from their community. As a last-ditch attempt to straighten out their crooked ways, someone who pities them closes their eyes, takes a deep breath, and drives to Dalton.

There's only one reform school in Ohio, and that's because most teenagers don't have the guts to do the necessary deeds that lands one's behind on the other side of that barbed-wire fence. So, there is only one reform school really needed.

But the ones who end up in there are there for a very good reason, and the ones whose crime is so horrific, so ingenious, it scares the others. It allows the worst to stride forward and take the role as their leader. They don't keep their crime – or _crimes_ – a secret, because what's be the point of that? The fear would dissipate, someone else would come forward, and proceed to whip their asses into shape. No, that wouldn't do.

The top, the _Warblers,_ wear leather jackets with red birds painted into the right shoulder to symbolize their status and reinforce their power. The underdogs sometimes go naked because someone had taken their clothes and burnt them.

Or, this is what Caro explains to Kurt, anyway.

"That's only if you get in their way," he says, as they both sit down in the mess hall, "or make a deal with them."

The mess hall is a large, white-and-grey hall with simple lights that stretch across the tables; there are five, all metal, with the benches connected, and they span the entire length of the hall. It's dirty, graffiti covering the walls and tables, a few dents in the benches, and Kurt thinks he spotted a splat of blood on the ceiling when he was queuing up for lunch. Behind his seat across from Caro, the food is behind those plastic counters and the lunch ladies are tough-looking women wielding ladles in their tattooed hands. They glare unforgivingly as the boys point out their meals-of-choice, and don't even flinch when a fight broke out in the queue – Kurt was receiving his plate of processed meat and a white-looking-sploge-that-he-suspected-might-be-oats-but-was-not-sure-given-the-smell – Caro said _porridge _but Kurt had simply given him a _look- _when a Jacket marched up to the boy in front of him and took his tray, then proceeded to punch him. The boy gaped as blood started trickling from his nose, and the Jacket laughed as he walked off with the tray. Kurt had simply moved past the display, and asked politely for some ice cream.

The seating is clearly segregated into the caste system of the reform. The ones at the bottom of the heap sit in the distant corner at the far table, looking miserable and hungry, lacking trays and items of clothing. There are other groups dotted around the tables, and they vary, Kurt supposes, according on your crime. He can see the inbred who had probably stolen food or money to support their families, the pock-marked faces and oily hair of the drug dealers – Kurt wonders if the only reason they appear to be high up in the ranks was because they are still supplying various important people with highs – the pale faces and round glasses of the hackers, and a few more besides.

And then, of course, taking up an entire table to themselves, are the Warblers. Big, beefy teenage boys that sit there with three or four trays each, laughing and smirking to themselves, talking loudly and picking both vicious verbal and bloody physical fights with neighbouring tables.

Caro and Kurt are sitting somewhere in the middle, which makes Kurt wonder if Caro's as low down as he originally thought.

Not that it matters.

Because, politics? _No. _He promised.

But, still. Hearing Caro explain how it works is kind of interesting.

"Deals?" Kurt asks the boy, whose face is still covered in blood, despite Kurt's attempts to try and wash it off ("if they see my face is clean," Caro said, "they'll just come back and break it again"). He taps the tray with his fork absently, staring at the Warblers.

Animals.

Caro nods. He actually has braved the animosity of the food and is actually eating. Kurt represses a shudder. "Deals," he repeats. "Don't ever get into a deal, _especially _with a Warbler."

Kurt frowns. "Why? What are they?"

Caro opens his mouth to reply, but a boy slides into the seat next to him, cutting him off.

"You Kurt Hummel, then?" The boy's shorter than he is but taller than Caro, with midnight hair that reaches the bottom of his neck, the wavy strands reaching desperately for his collar bone. They half-heartedly hide his eyes, but Kurt can tell the eyes were brown, Kit-Kat-chocolate-brown, and they swirl slightly in amusement and curiosity. The shoulders are broad, and the skin that stretches over a superhero jaw line is almost as pale as Kurt's, but it looks rougher, more weathered. The stranger wears a loose black shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and the black tattoo around his left wrists disappears up the sleeve of his shirt. Kurt notes the black biker boots on his feet. The stranger smiles at Kurt, but Kurt can feel the eyes working hard, trying to place him, figure him out, pin him down like a butterfly and label him.

Caro smiles brightly at the stranger. "You finished?"

The stranger shrugs as his tray hits the table with an ominous _thud_, and he picks up a fork and starts stabbing the mush. "I didn't ask," he mutters, eyes still trained on Kurt.

Kurt bristles, and Caro tinkles out a laugh, patting the stranger on the shoulder.

"Gabriel Michael Hush," he declares the stranger as, "this is Kurt."

Gabriel Michael Hush nods in acknowledgement. "Call me Micah. Parents had a bit of a thing for angels."

Kurt smiles a little. Almost as interesting as _Elizabeth._

Micah's features smooth out a little, and he chuckles. "Relax," he tells Kurt as Caro looks on with an appreciative look in his eye. "I'm not going to attack you."

Kurt's smile gets a little wider, and he ducks his head to stare at his tray. People are being nice to him. How strange. Despite wanting to be left alone, Kurt's almost enjoying the company.

"You talking about the Warblers?" Micah asks.

Caro nods. "Kurt's curious."

Micah fixes Kurt with a _look_. "The Warblers," he says, "are kings here."

"I've gathered," Kurt interrupts dryly.

Micah doesn't blink. "Unless you want your life here to be a living hell, then do what they want you to. If you're lucky, they'll ask."

Kurt frowns. Maybe Blaine does have some weight here after all. "What happens if you refuse?"

"Implicitly?" Caro asks. "They'll ask you again."

Micah snorts into his tray, and Kurt starts to feel the first flutterings of panic. "With their fists."

Caro turns to shush Micah gently, but the damage is already done. Kurt can feel himself throwing up shields in the hypothetical eventuality Blaine gets him to do something; he _has _to be able to fight back. Caro faces Kurt again, and grimaces. "If you say _no_ straight-out-"

"-then you won't be able to move for a week," Micah finishes.

Kurt swallows. Right. "Why the _Warblers_?"

Micah laughs, and Caro smiles a little. "It's the fact they're untouchable," Caro explains, almost keeping the leather jacketed boys in his peripheral vision in case they hear him. "They fly so high above the rest of us, we're helpless."

Kurt tries to ignore the sick feeling in his stomach, and moves his mush around the plate as distraction. "What sort of _favours _do they ask for?"

"Usually, it's just booze, cigarettes or highs. They've got knives, so they're okay as far as protection goes. It's rare that one of them will ask for fire arms, and then they go to the thieves. They just nick it from the armoury. Other times, it'll be food or clothes, but they only take those from the underdogs. Sometimes, it'll be for entertainment," Micah says darkly.

Caro nods sagely. "That's where the deals come in."

Kurt leans in slightly. "How do they work?"

Micah grins, but there's no humour in his eyes. "Debt."

"If you can't pay a Warbler back when they ask you for something," Caro explains, but his hands are shaking slightly. It unnerves Kurt enough to push his plate away. "The Warbler in question then asks for compensation, like a replacement, usually in the form of entertainment. Of course, this also happens when they get bored, too."

Kurt tries and controls his breathing, stuttering in his throat. "Entertainment?"

Micah nods, and Kurt visualizes an imaginary drag from a fictional cigarette. "It depends what they want, really. Mostly it'll be humiliation and extreme dares, like running around campus stark-naked. Other times, though, it'll be just beating the living daylights out of them. One kid got tossed out the second-story window of a Warbler's room, and all the Warbler said was he did it 'cause he was bored. The kid had to be hospitalized for three weeks. Another kid got _slut_ carved into his back by a Warbler, and he had to go in for a transfusion, because they'd abandoned him in a locked bathroom. Rumour had it, though, the kid was in a deal with the Warbler and he cheated his way out of it."

_Shit._

Kurt tries to battle against the torrent of mental images, of boys in black-and-white bathrooms, bodies limp of the floor, lying in their own blood, red hand stains sliding down walls, sinks overflowing-

-_red, red, everywhere, mixing with the screams-_

-get a _grip, _Hummel.

"Oh," he breathes out shakily. "Okay."

Caro leans in, trying to be comforting, but when he speaks, it sounds uneasy. "You don't have to worry about it, really," he says desperately, "you know not to go there." But then there's a pause, a hesitation long enough to get Kurt's pulse skyrocketing. "But, those aren't really _proper _deals."

_More? _"What are proper deals?" he asks, wishing against all odds that it isn't-

Micah swallows. "Protection in exchange for sex. And when I say _sex, _I _mean _it."

All at once it makes too much sense: a naked boy, bloody, scratched and bruised, eyes screwed up, crying out in pain, pinned to a threadbare mattress on his stomach by a bigger, faceless stranger, the room dark and covered in shadows-

-"I know kids who tried backing out of a deal they'd struck, but couldn't because the Warbler in question refused to let them-"

-_a crying boy kneeling on tiles, legs raw, pleading with a huge, hulking, laughing presence who was unforgiving, the begging boy crying tears of blood, streaming from his eyes over his cheeks-_

-"Sometimes they go back to their rooms bruised and bloody"-

_-a boy curled up in the corner of a dark, forbidden, strange room, gripping onto his knees, his face a mess of purple and red and black and blood, crying to himself as loud as he wanted because there was no one around who could help him, feeling utterly alone-_

-"Sometimes with broken noses"-

-_an intimidating stranger draped in shadows and malice curling back their arm and punching a weeping, small, powerless boy in the nose, the crunch deafening, the spurt of gore and blood hitting the floor with a wet thud, the boy screaming in pain and fear-_

-"Sometimes they don't come back until morning with chafed wrists"-

-_bleeding wrists encased in shining metal-_

-"Whipped backs"-

_-bare flesh cringing as leather meets skin in a powerful crack-_

-"Knife carvings"-

-_torsos littered with incriminating, blood-red words-_

-"Bite marks"-

_-a porcelain neck with large, purple-and-crimson teeth markings-_

"_Stop!_"

Micah and Caro blink in shock as Kurt flings his arms out, eyes wide, panting, trying to wash his mind clean.

Shit. _Shit. _They came back. They came back.

He's here to forget, right? They can't hurt him here, not now. He's safe.

Micah coughs uncomfortably, and Kurt flinches.

"Sorry," Kurt mutters, dragging his hands into his chest, eyes trained on the tray, wondering if anyone around them heard his outburst in the ruckus of the mess hall. Of course they did, didn't they, he was so _loud._

Kurt exhales shakily.

"You alright?" Caro asks, clearly shaken.

Kurt nods sharply. "So the moral is don't make a deal with a Warbler."

Caro laughs suddenly, a little broken, but still laughs enough to break the tension, for Micah's shoulders to relax, and for Kurt to go back to picking at his food.

* * *

><p>Most of the deals made are inspired by blackmail, Warblers threatening whimpering boys what could happen if they don't do <em>exactly <em>as they say. It's not all consensual, but then the boys can't _really _say no if they ever want to see the outside world again in one piece. The majority of the deal-makers just try and pretend it's not happening to them, like forgetting a nightmare.

The _majority_ in any case.

Because there's the minority, a small number of boys, talented boys, who _ask _for deals.

And the strange thing is, _they're _the ones to watch out for.

Evan raises an eyebrow at the semi-naked boy at his feet.

It's sometime in the afternoon – Evan never has lunch, because it's a waste of his time, and food sort of becomes superficial after a while anyway – maybe three or four, he's lost track of time, and he's spent _ages _in this darkened little room with two people standing watch outside and making sure no one disturbs him and _him. _It smells of sweat and sex and cigarette smoke, the stench swirling and curling around his hands that hold onto the edge of the desk, and Evan can just make out the indistinct smirk of the boy at his feet, covered in spit and cum and arrogance.

Arrogance that even Evan has no claim over.

"So," the boy says conversationally, as though he hasn't been choking on Evan's cock for the last half hour. "The new boy. He's something."

Evan says nothing, only tucks himself away and zips up, still glaring at the boy.

The boy chuckles. "I forgot," he taunts, "you don't like me mentioning other people in the throws of sex, do you?"

Evan blinks. "Do you know anything?"

The boy shrugs easily, avoiding the penetrating stare and looks around for his shirt. "They picked up your signal."

Evan nods. "Expected. Have they retaliated?"

The shirt is snatched into hands from behind two desks away from where the boy's kneeling on the floor in front of Evan sat on the teacher's desk, but instead of putting it on, the boy uses it to wipe his chest and mouth. "Not yet."

"Are they going to?"

The boy smirks. "Perhaps."

"And the plan?"

The boy now stares at Evan, as though he's something new and strange and rather clever, as though _he _was the one receiving the blowjob. "Ready."

Evan smiles, but there's something lacking in it, something that reminds the boy exactly _why_ he asked for this. "_Perfect_," Evan breathes, and the boy on the floor shudders slightly, enough to capture Evan's attention again, enough for his mouth to start salivating, enough to enjoy the moments of power he gets from these.

* * *

><p>Kurt <em>thinks <em>he remembers all their names.

_Thinks _being the primary verb here, because he isn't entirely sure.

He's sat on one of the courtyard's benches, watching a group of people interact around him, waiting for him to join in; he can feel them watching him out the corners of their eyes, and so he pretends to stare at his nails, so they all can ignore the fact that they're watching him watching them.

There's Caro and Micah, who Kurt now wonders aren't _more _than just friends, the way the Micah watches Caro, the way Caro laughs at all Micah's jokes, the gently reprimanding way he childs him, the protective arm around the shoulder, the soft and satisfying smile. It's strange to see displays of affection like this, because nothing's more obvious than the hand on Caro's lower back – he might as well have it branded on his forehead – but no one says nothing and in turn, they say nothing to them.

_Them_ being the rest of the motley crew Kurt was introduced to.

There's David, David White, a medium-sized boy with broad shoulders, lightly tanned skin, and a warm cheery smile under a head of dark brown hair. He swims, he said to Kurt as he high-fived Micah in a horribly masculine fashion, which explains the shoulders. He's nice enough, sat down on the opposite bench, laughing genially and winking at Kurt when he deemed necessary.

Then there's Mitchell Stoder, the tallest boy Kurt's ever met, and Kurt knows _Finn_, which is saying something. He falls into the natural role as leader so quickly that he might as well have been Finn, and that doesn't make Kurt's heart ache with loss because Carole and Finn left ages ago, left when Kurt went into the third reform school in California and never stayed in touch, left and took the sparkle in his dad's eyes with them-

-_anyway. _

And then there's-

"Darling," says a chatty ginger, falling dramatically into the space next to Kurt, giving Kurt the most maternal look Kurt's _ever _seen on a teenage boy. "Turn your frown upside down."

Jack Starling.

He's startlingly off-putting, because one would assume that Kurt knows all about flamboyantly camp males and knows enough to last him a life-time. That _would _have been true in another life, perhaps, but in this one Kurt's spent far too much time stuck inside reform schools to have met any gay bar ghosts. Jack becomes something _different_.

Caro spares him a pitying look. "Don't frighten him, Grandma," he tells Jack. The nickname's horribly appropriate.

Jack waves a hand. "Pish posh. Although, you _would_ tell me if I scared you, wouldn't you darling?" He gives Kurt huge earnest eyes, and Kurt manages to stutter out an affirmative before he completely loses the plot.

Jack's unusual. Nothing wrong with that.

It was strange, Kurt muses, how they introduced themselves like the long-lost relatives Kurt never knew he shared DNA with, handshakes and friendly smiles and a joke or two to ease the tension of new people. They treat Caro and Micah like family, though, so maybe it's standard protocol for the new kid; show him how friendly they can be and try and make sure he feels right at home.

Kurt probably will _never _feel at home in places like this.

Mitch gives him a sympathetic smile. "Relax," he assures a stricken Kurt, "you'll get used to it."

"Besides," David grins, "he wouldn't hurt a fly."

"All he does is gossip," Caro chips in.

"Grandma," teases Micah, and Jack scolds them gently with humour twinkling in his eyes, hands flapping half-heartedly in an attempt to reprimand, but it just makes the boys laugh harder.

And this should make Kurt relax, it really should, only Kurt can't help feeling pangs of longing and nostalgia as he sees the boys laugh and mock and tease and protect one another.

He had this once.

He's the outsider now.

It still hurts a little even now.

Kurt swallows and glances away, around the courtyard, leaving them to their familiar banter. He indulges in a little reflecting on his situation, now it's afternoon on Day One. The group seem pretty keen to take him in, like an orphaned kitten out in the storm, but them the Warblers also showed interest, didn't they? Although, granted, it was the generic we-on-top-you-lick-our-shoes-grunt speech that Kurt's been fed a thousand times over. Nothing changes.

Suddenly, a flash of sun-

-Kurt automatically sits up straighter, eyes narrowing, senses on high alert out of habit-

-and a vertically stunted, curly-haired, leather-jacket wearing roommate steps out of the main building into the sun.

_Blaine Anderson._

It's like, all of a sudden, Kurt's senses are on red alert, like he's going to be jumped and attacked any minute now, but all Anderson does is take a moment outside to breathe in and out, eyes half-closed, and walk over to one of the trees in the courtyard. No one else notices him, don't even turn and wave or scowl or whatever they're supposed to do in greeting. They just ignore him – or don't see him, Kurt doesn't know which it is, or which he wants it to be – and Anderson goes over to the other side of the courtyard and sits in the shade under the wide spread of half-dead branches. Kurt sees him heave a sigh, chest rising and falling under the jacket and the white t-shirt, and he simply shuts his eyes.

Kurt stares at him, a moment that stretches out and out until he forgets where it starts, just staring at the boy under the tree-

-"Kurt?"

His head snaps around, and sees them all staring at him, like he was _supposed _to be paying attention to their banal chatter, like he was _supposed _to be involved. Mitch and David are giving him vaguely amused looks, like he's just done something annoying but adorable, Micah offers him a raised eyebrow, Jack a concerned furrow of his forehead, but Caro's eyes are completely clear and determined, a slight smile on his lips, like he's expecting something else, like he _knows_ something.

That should worry Kurt, it really should.

Instead, he's more concerned she just got caught staring at Anderson.

Or maybe they didn't notice. Since, you know, they ignored him.

"Sorry," Kurt says, an automatic reflex reaction, a knee-jerk instinct to make himself invisible. They nod and he concedes defeat, listening to them, thinking to himself.

He doesn't notice the glances they give each other.

Why would he?

* * *

><p>Ace stands in the second-floor window of the boarding house, and smiles to himself.<p>

Really, he thinks, as he sees Anderson sat by himself under the tree, as he watches Hummel watch Anderson, as he notices the little sneaking looks the Renegades give each other, thinking that no one's watching them at all.

God, don't they know? Everyone's watched.

* * *

><p>Dinner's almost like lunch, except that there's more people.<p>

The rest of the afternoon was spent showing Kurt where everything is. The classrooms are in one part of the campus, the football field is off limits after five o'clock, no one goes behind the sports shed, and so on and so forth. Kurt can't help thinking that there's an awful lot of rules for rule-breakers, but whatever. He's going to go with it, because he likes all his brain cells in his head and has no wishes to see his synapse painted on the wall in the near future, thank you very much.

Six months. All he's got to do is ride it out for six months, and then he can run.

And then they make their way down to the mess hall, chatting and ragging on each other like it's a natural occurrence and it probably is; Kurt's been trained in a world where every sarcastic comment and little insult is meant to rile you up and instigate fights. He stays quiet anyway, grabs his tray and watches the ladies behind the counter pile up his plate full of undefinable solids without saying a word. He follows the group of boys over to the table they were sat at lunch, or near enough, and sits down second to the end, Jack on the inside chatting with Caro across the table, Mitch on the other, almost as quiet as Kurt, staring out into the lunch hall.

Kurt stares down at his plate and wonders how he managed to snag himself a willingly protective posse. The slush-that-is-white-but-not-really-so-probably-is-not-an-organic-material stares back as silently as he is.

Caro and Jack witter on, David and Micah occasionally offer their own opinions, but mainly it's those two who drive the conversation. Kurt can't help to notice the determination and focus that Mitch surveys the hall with, not enough to pass as a concern, not enough to let it pass without curiosity. He spends the meal looking between his fork and Mitch's eyes.

And then-

-the corner of one twitches, Mitch mutters, "brace yourselves," and a group of leather-jacket, _Warblers_, approach, swaggering, smirking-

-with Anderson in the middle-

-_Ay me!_

Kurt sighs. Wonderful.

They're all various forms of thugs with bulging muscles and unsightly grimaces, but the ones standing closer to the cocky little hobbit are slighter – Kurt assumes from intelligence – and there's no sight of any of these _deals _nearby. Perhaps they hide themselves by eating with others.

Perhaps they don't eat at all.

Mitch stands in retaliation and response, David too, with Micah's fingers twitching around his cutlery. Jack and Caro watch silently with wide eyes, but there's no great element of surprise in their postures. Maybe it's a reoccurring thing, learnt to watch out for it and all.

Maybe it's something else.

Before Kurt can get any further with that thought, though, Anderson smirks like a vengeful angel or simply a mischievous one, and the fury bubbles up in him again. No matter how hot Anderson is, he is _still _an intolerable dick.

"Well, well, well," he says loftily, tilting his head back to regard Kurt with slightly narrowed eyes. Kurt ignores the slight squirm to his stomach. "Hello again, spitfire."

"_Again?_" Kurt hears Caro hiss behind him, but he doesn't turn around.

Mitch shifts slightly, protectively, in front of Kurt. "Anderson," he says coolly, "how nice to see you." So _not _a reoccurrence, then. Maybe they're experts at planning in case of an attack. "How can we help you?" The polite words are at total odds with his body language, which seems to amuse the Warblers.

Anderson's smirk gets wider, and his eyes sparkle, but Kurt can't help but feel as though they're lacking something. When Anderson accosted him outside the dorms, it was full of life and passion and things that made Kurt feel like he was going to vibrate out of his skin; here, it's nothing like it. "We just wanted to see how the pretty little new boy was settling in," he claims, spreading his arms wide, fingers outstretched, and Kurt has a fleeting image of a baby Anderson dancing in the front room waving his jazz hands. _Inappropriate much, _he scolds himself. Baby Anderson probably spent his youth keying cards and pulling up gardenias, not shaking his fingers to show tunes.

Mitch clenches his hands, but his voice stays neutral, and Kurt has to wonder at the bizarre display of power here. He's had experience in most of the reform schools up and down the country, where ever his dad could afford to send him, and whenever the top dogs – which Kurt assumes the Warblers are, no one else has leather jackets and a swagger to match – were threatened, they immediately launched into the equivalent of a turf war fight until they were pulled apart black-eyed and bleeding. Nothing like that has happened here, well, at least for the time being, but even with the richest boys with the wealthiest and most refined of upbringings would have already landed punches by now. There's something else, something more subtle going on here, something Kurt's not privy to, nuances he can't pick up on, not yet.

_Politics, _he reminds himself. He wasn't going to get involved. He promised.

"He's fine," Mitch tells Anderson, "with _us._"

Anderson laughs, charming - and like it's a cue on stage, the rest of the boys chuckle with him, so what results is an eerie mumble, like an amused ghost. "You think we want him?" he asks.

Mitch narrows his own eyes. "Don't you?"

There's something missing from those words, Kurt thinks suddenly, something that makes his stomach clench in nerves and anticipation.

Mitch is still talking, though. "As a deal?" Kurt hears him say. "He knows about your deals, and he won't agree to one."

Anderson's smirk turns into a full-blown cocky grin. "We have our ways," he claims.

And they're _seriously_ talking about him like he's not here. _Assholes._

"I will _not,_" Kurt hears himself proclaim, "agree to any of your backwater _deals_, because you seem to underestimate the values at which I place my pride and _standards._"

Anderson turns to him, a faint surprise in the back of those swirling eyes, like a dying sun, all forgotten majesty and broken beauty. He clearly didn't expect Kurt to fight back, but, _oh, _look, the warmth and sheer _heat_ is back in his eyes, and Kurt can almost feel him undressing him with his eyes – undressing him or imagining him drowning in a pool of his own blood. "Oh," he says, "_will _you now?"

Kurt almost stands up and hits him, but he remembers his dad's voice, echoing in his ears, a promise. "Yes," he replies icily, "I will. And you won't _dare_ if you're smart, but I won't count on it."

Anderson doesn't rise to the taunts, merely chuckles and turns his back on Kurt. "C'mon boys," he says, "let's leave spitfire to his protectors."

And that's it. The Warblers walk off without another word, Mitch sits down with David, Micah starts eating again, and Jack and Caro continue with their benign gossip. Kurt stares at them, eyes wide, because that's not what he expected from a confrontation, _at all._

There's something seriously wrong here, he can feel it.

And it's only his first day. _Shit._

* * *

><p>It's dark and dry that evening, with a clear sky and tiny little pinpricks of light bursting through the black, like lost souls all holding candles, trying to get home. Blaine remembers the stories his brother used to tell him before everything, the ones of the travellers in velvet boats with oars and a single sail, with maps of the sky that changed with the wind, and eyes that sparkled in the dark. He said that every heart of a traveller was in the sky, that they were so bright they shone at night, and when you fell in love, a star would stop moving and become extra bright, shine that little more, because the traveller had stopped and found a home. That's all the travellers were doing, Cooper told a wide-eyed Blaine, looking for a loving home.<p>

_"Do you think," little Blaine asked his older brother, eyes full of starlight, "that everyone falls in love?"_

_His brother chuckled and pulls little Blaine onto his lap, so they could both see the sky if they titled their heads back together. "Of course," he said, "everyone who deserves it. Mummy and Daddy have, and I have with Josie, and you will, too, one day."_

_Little Blaine bit his lip and stared up at the night. "Even if I do something really bad?"_

_Cooper looked at him with a serious expression, the one little Blaine can remember him giving Mummy when she cried sometimes, the one he gave Daddy when he came home late smelling of something sweet and cloying, the one he gave Josie when he asked her to come and live with him. "Blaine," he said, "I promise you that you will fall in love."_

_"And then my traveller will find a home?"_

_Cooper chuckled again and pulled little Blaine in tighter against his chest, chin on the crown of little Blaine's curly mop. "Your traveller will love you," he said, "and they'll never leave the home you give them."_

_"Promise."_

_"Promise."_

Children's stories.

Blaine believed him anyway.

He lies back in the grass of the field, all alone in the dark and the cold. He ignores the noises from the dormitories, the floodlights of the field edges looking over the fence, the red lights of the cameras on the side of the buildings. No one can find him out here, not even if he wanted them to.

Even Evan doesn't know about out here. Blaine never told him, not even when they slept side by side in their own sweat and heat and they whispered to each other about the future and dreams and _together. _He wasn't a traveller, never was. He never stopped under Blaine's roof, and sometimes, Blaine was grateful. Of course, Blaine _is _grateful now that he never did, but at the time, it was a little disappointing. They only had sex to bind them – sex and the Warblers, and that was never going to be enough.

_Evan's lost himself, _he muses in the dark, _he lost himself the day Isaac never came back._

But, in Blaine's opinion, there's no point crying over spilt milk, even if the mess is as big as Evan's screwed-up psyche. Things like that will always haunt you, but they won't change unless you learn to let them go.

But the plan, though. The plan to get out.

-_did my heart love 'til now?-_

Kurt Hummel. Spitfire. The beautiful boy with the fiery temperament. He's only supposed to be a tool, an ornament in the greater scheme of the planned escape. He's not supposed to be anything other than part of the plan.

But those _eyes, _those strange blue and green and silver eyes, the ones that burn slightly, and how did the seas ever burn, because they can't, but Kurt makes it so, impossible but true, the ones that pull Blaine in and make it impossible, everything impossible, because he didn't believe in love at first sight, but-

-oh, _God._

Somewhere above him, a star stops.

* * *

><p>Kurt doesn't know what the time is, but it <em>has <em>to be somewhere just before midnight.

His room is empty. He knows it is, because he can feel the cold beds where Caro and Anderson and the mystery roommate should be, but they're _not_ there. He can't sleep, anyway. He never can on the first night in a foreign bed, because usually all the can think about is whether the sheets have been washed to a satisfactory degree, like _sterilized _or _brand new_, but tonight it's different. He can't manage to shake that awful foreboding sickness he felt in his stomach over dinner, and his mind races through the confrontation over and over.

There's something he's missing, he knows it.

- _amber eyes sparkling with amusement –_

Caro's out with Micah and the others, probably, sneaking around after curfew and lights out; he doesn't want to even _consider _where Anderson is. The Warblers probably make the most of their deals when the lights go out and there's no one watching, probably go to the largest room and _share them._ Kurt's mind flashes with memories, the ones with the knife points and the blood, but now, when he can, he pushes them down and ignores them.

No point dwelling, right?

-_the sparkle vanishes as he replies-_

Although, _why_ the whereabouts of his roommates matter so much to him is confusing, because it shouldn't. Kurt _promised _not to get involved, and that's the course of action he still intends to follow through with, but the circumstances he's under is starting to make it impossible. He's far too curious for his own good, and one day it's going to get him into a serious amount of trouble.

No changes there, then.

-_like reciting lines from a script-_

Wait.

_Wait a moment._

A _script._

They were reciting.

It had been planned in advance.

Kurt's heart thunders in his chest as he bolts upright in his bed and stares at Blaine's.

What the _hell _is going on?

* * *

><p>And as the clock hits midnight, somewhere in the dormitories, in a room foggy with smoke and sex, and low voices and laughter as cries pierce the air, as a boy sits on a bed with another on his knees, he winds his hand through the deal's hair and stares into the abyss, the promises the Devil made him, the temptation of power and the illusion of freedom.<p>

In other room, just hallways away, the lights are low and the air is thick and the circle of boys on the floor discuss information and the prices to be paid, and the lengths willing to go to get on top of the pile, a boy with rainbow-tipped spikes in his hair surveys his disciples and wonders if they ever knew how ruthless they could be.

In the ventilation shafts of the rooms, listening devices light up the space, connecting back to a small room with a single inhabitant sat at the desk with a pair of headphones in and a notepad on his desk, and he begins to smile.

On the field in the dark, a boy stares at the sky, mourning for everything he's lost and ensuring that he won't let himself get hurt by love again.

And on his own, in a room where there should be company but he remains forgotten, a boy with eyes of the sea sits on his knees on the floor in front of his roommate's bed and pulls out a piece of paper from under the pillow, and reads it.

_Information?_ it says. _Ace Williams knows it all._


	3. Day Two Part One

**AUTHOR'S NOTE**

**Okay, so I got tumblr, and it's nothingmoreimportant/tumblr/com (replace the / with .), so if you want to ask me any questions, or drop me a line, head over there. I'll be grateful to hear from you; if you have tumblr, it'll be nice to follow some people.  
><strong>

**Anyway, a short installment. Day One should also be in order now, all in one place.**

**I am forever in your debt.**

**Thanks and enjoy,**

**Steph**

* * *

><p><strong>Day Two<strong>

As the sun rises over the campus, it breaks over the dust-bowl plain and empty stretch of dry, dry wasteland, over the fence and wall, over to the sliding glass panels of admin. It turns the field in the morning glow a strange orange color, like a pastel in a child's crayon box, and the roof tiles glint and glimmer in the weak rays of the day. It cracks over the courtyard and taps on the window panes of the boarding house, then flees and moves on, barely waiting to be noticed.

As the sun rises, it touches everyone as they wake from their sleep.

It's gold over Evan Taylor's face as he stares out over the grounds from his bedroom window. He ignores the snuffling from the sleepers on the floor, not caring whether they were clad in leather jackets or small and weedy and covered in bruises and nightmares. In the end, they're all irrelevant and just _there. _What Sam said yesterday was a lie. He _can _do this. He has bigger, much bigger plans that involve everyone and care about no one else.

He stares at the sun and smiles to himself.

It's unwelcome to Damian as he races through the corridors of the building and back to his basement where he can hide and plot in safety and relative quiet. It's a reminder of the little time they have left to beat Evan at his own game and win back the school as soon as they can. Damian thinks of the fool proof ways they're going to gain power, and how he can do it all with everyone dangling from his fingertips, puppets of his own makings. Everyone is, including Evan, no matter how much he tried to fight it. His strings are just a little more tangled than most, that's all.

Still, he only has so much time left before it'll be too late.

But not impossible. No, it can be done.

It's the clarification Ace needs to move on with his plan, a distraction in the waiting game he plays as he sits at his desk patiently. There's only so much he can do with the eyes and ears watching him everywhere, but he's confident that his move to gather the little bird's interest in him has worked, or _will _work eventually when the bird comes looking for him. Ace has no interest in saving him; rather, he feels it necessary for the bird to know what he's getting himself into.

So, he waits. He knows he'll be rewarded eventually. Besides, what else is there to do?

It's warm across Blaine's face, stretching like a cat against his features and nuzzling his face sweetly into consciousness. He blinks blearily into his pillow, eyes watering slightly against the golden light, fingers spasming against the sheets, toes curling into the blanket. His spitfire was asleep when he crawled into bed last night, he remembers, all peaceful napping and soft and precious, far too precious to be caught up in this… whatever it is. He remembers the half-awake promise he made to his spitfire's sleeping form, to protect him in whatever way he could, while he still could. In the heat of daylight, it seems more difficult than he intended it to be, but Blaine never breaks his promises.

And Kurt's worth the effort. He doesn't belong here, in a jail cell with motley cats at the bottom jostling for his flesh. No, spitfire birds are supposed to soar free.

It's helpful for Kurt, standing in the corridor two floors above his room and his sleeping roommate, curled up in his bed sheets looking every bit a sleepy Labrador puppy. He ignores the threads of heat curling through him as he remembers the way the sheets were bunched around his waist and Kurt was able to see the strip of skin between those sheets and his shirt. He looked completely carefree as he slept, no furrows on his forehead, his curls stark against the white. The only thing that was missing, he muses wistfully, was his eyes.

_No,_ he scolds.

He glances down at the paper in his hands, the slip of writing and the number underneath. Kurt hopes it's a room number, because it certainly looks like one, and he can't think of what else it can possibly be. He kind of hopes that he's got it all wrong, that when he knocks on the door, it won't open or the boy opening it will tell him that Ace Williams is a figment of Kurt's rather desperate imagination and that he needs to see a psychiatrist immediately in order to sort out these hallucinations and his addiction to designer clothes.

Well, maybe not the clothes.

He sighs, gathers his wits, and knocks on the door twice.

He's stood there for a few precious seconds where he's convinced nothing's happened, and he's so close to turning on his fashionable heel and stalking back to his room to concede defeat, but-

-the door swings open, and Kurt blinks at the boy standing there.

He's short and wiry, so short Kurt automatically thinks he's too young to be in reform. It's the short, dark hair and the pale skin that give him his youthful qualities, in a different way to Kurt; he's not nearly as though, and it reminds Kurt of a young, angular but handsome soccer player from England. The only thing that gives him away is his eyes. They're dark, almost a blue-black colour but _full _to the brim with intelligence. Kurt can almost _hear _this boy's brain whirring, cogs clicking beneath his skull, and it puts him on his guard automatically.

The boy leans against the frame and smirks faintly.

Kurt wants to bash his head against a wall. Why does everyone in this Godforsaken place look at him as though they want to devour him?

He ignores the impulse.

"Ace Williams?" he asks a tad uncertainly, tapping his shoe against the floor.

The boy's smirk gets more pronounced, and he nods, almost to himself as a congratulations. He backs away, and turns into the room. "Come on in, birdie," he calls over his shoulder.

_Birdie? _Kurt steels himself, and with another sigh, walks into the room and shuts the door behind him.

His first reaction is to walk the other way again.

The room is small, smaller than his own, but it's clear Ace shares with no one. There's two single beds, one on either side of the window, but only one looks slept in. The other is covered in sheets and sheet of paper, mainly in one short of looped, eloquent handwriting, but Kurt notes a variation. The walls, wardrobe and bathroom door – he gets an _ensuite? _Kurt _hates _having to use the communal one in the hall on his floor, mainly because it smells like boys and sweat and sometimes that heady stench of sex, but thank God none of them on his floor seem to be overly hygienic – are all completely _wallpapered _in photos, notes, scraps of paper. It looks like the place belongs to an extremely disorganised investigative journalist. There's a desk, too, with a laptop on it and a printer, and Kurt wonders if the boy gets internet or not.

Ace is stood by the window, casually leaning against the sill and staring at Kurt.

Kurt's back straightens out of instinct and habit, but forces himself to direct his eyes elsewhere while they talk.

"Can I help?" Ace asks smoothly, and Kurt can see he'd be _very _good at questioning suspects. It's that sort of unassuming, friendly voice that people tend to trust instinctively.

Kurt stares at a picture of the campus covered in little red arrows. Next to it, there's a bird's eye map with arrows in the same place. One of them, the one next to the mess hall, is circled. "I want answers."

A low chuckle. "Direct and to the point, no beating about the bush. Very good, Kurt. I thought you'd play hard to get."

Next to the map, there's some notes, and Kurt spots the words _the third night._ When he looks closer, he also spots _deception. _"How do you know my name?"

"Birdie, _everyone _knows your name. Besides, I like to make a point of knowing everything that happens inside these fences."

"Like what?"

"Be more specific, you were doing _so _well."

"What _things _could possibly happen inside a reform school?"

Another chuckle, and the shifting of feet against the floor. "You, of _all _people, should know about the unseen, _bitch._"

The word is spat with so much venom-

-_bitch, that's a good doggy, come on-_

_-_Kurt slips inside himself-

-_blood against the walls, sharp piercing pain-_

-that he has to haul himself out-

-_please, no, don't-_

-with his teeth.

He clenches his jaw and stares at a sketch of a gun under _the third night._ "How do you know about that?"

"I told you. I know _everything._"

"Fine," Kurt bites out, "okay."

"I know, for example, how you came to find me here. It wasn't too hard to time your distrust of your roommates and _friends_ and use it to my advantage."

"You planted that note?"

"I thought you'd like some questions answered."

"Yes."

"I'm rarely wrong."

Kurt's eyes pause at different handwriting, strange words on paper, like _power _and _escape _and _pin its wings down. _"Was it planned?"

"The standoff in the mess hall last night? I'm afraid so."

Kurt closes his eyes, screws them up against the impending headache. "Why?"

"A plan, little bird, in action. A plan that involves both parties hiding their true intentions, but a plan that involves _you_ believing them both anyway."

"Why _me?_"

"Leverage."

It makes no sense, but he can come back to that. "Why did I come to you so early, then?"

Another one of those damn infuriating laughs. "So that a certain Warbler couldn't stop you." More movement, a creak from the bed, and Kurt watches Ace sit down on it from the corner of his eye, placing his hands on his lap and staring at the opposite wall. "That's the other thing."

"What?"

"The information you request. You have questions concerning Blaine Anderson, but I must warn you, he has managed to keep an extraordinary amount from me."

Kurt pauses for a moment, then launches into it anyway. "How long has he been here?"

"Longer than anyone else, about four years."

"Why?"

"Unfortunately – and it pains me greatly to say this, little bird - but I don't know."

Kurt turns to him, eyebrow raised. "You don't?"

Ace shakes his head ruefully, sighing. "It's always been one of my great disappointments, not being able to find his file. I have a sneaking suspicion that he took it himself to hide, but I never confirmed it. For all I know, he might've burnt it. If he has it, it's well hidden."

Kurt nods to himself, mind racing. Anderson has something he wants to hide from prying eyes. Something he's ashamed of? Potentially.

"How did the Warblers start?"

This time, Ace laughs properly, and looks at Kurt with dancing eyes. "With Blaine surrounding himself with protectors. Evan's is his second because he's so intelligent, and the fact that they used to fuck every night."

Kurt blinks, ignoring the warring jealousy and joy rushing through him like wildfire and hurricanes. It doesn't _matter. _Anderson's _still _an asshole.

"What happened?"

"Evan's is a twin, but his twin disappeared. No one knows what happened to him, only that when he left, Evan went _insane. _He's the one that started the deals. That was the last straw for Blaine."

Whoever this Evan Taylor is, he's not all there and possibly dangerous. Kurt shivers involuntarily. Great.

"How did he get in here?" Kurt asks as calmly as he can, trying to ignore the thundering pulse in his ears slowly getting louder. _Shit, _he thinks, _shit, no politics._

_Fuck it, _something else says wryly, _this is too good._

Ace smirks and gazes out the window wistfully. "The Warblers," he says, "have a system, where the worse a crime is, the higher up you climb. So, your average thug with social issues stay as bodyguards, the hackers as information sources, and so on. The twins got in, their file says, because they have a long history of deal-making. It makes a certain amount of sense with the Taylors I know – or knew, in Isaac's case. Mainly blackmail and manipulation, but they're very good with twisting words, not afraid to get their hands dirty. The last straw was when their father caught them filming and occasionally partaking in porn. Apparently, the file says they set up a very profitable pornography business, but a lot of the _actors, _if you will, were underage. They were threatened with prison, but being under eighteen themselves, their father sent them there."

Kurt's breath whooshes out in a long gust, ribs heaving. He stares at the picture, the gap missing beside it, the awful knowing glint in the black-and-white image, hands sweating, fingers clenching eyes glued onto the manic ones-

-_ohGodohGodohGod-_

-"But," Ace says, sliding off the bed and walking to the wardrobe, "what the scary thing is, Anderson is still on top."

Kurt's eyes snap up-

-curly, innocent, wide, wide eyes-

-_world's exile is death; then banished-_

-_shit._

"Fuck," Kurt blurts unintentionally, then whirls to see Ace holding out a note. His fists clench and his stomach turns. "What's that?"

Ace's smirk curls up cruelly, and he extends his arm. "Leverage, little bird."

Kurt doesn't move to take the paper; if he does, his fingers might tremble, and Ace scents fear, Kurt can feel it, he's one of _those_, like _them _who treated him like-

"What has any of this got to do with Anderson?"

Ace laughs, truly laughs, like he hasn't been humouring Kurt the entire time and answering his queries while it just makes his stomach feels more ill and sick and tumbling over itself in an empty twist-

"Trust me, _bitch,_" he bites, "the best way to understand what's going on is to offer yourself."

"Like as a-"

"A _sacrifice_, if you will, although I don't think the Warblers are as crude as the-"

"You're talking about me making a-"

"With Anderson, understandably, not anyone else. I've never seen him take a-"

"_I am not doing that again!"_

Ace blinks at the outburst; Kurt feels like he's run a marathon, images racing through his head-

-_c'mon, bitch, bend over-_

_-_he's going to throw up-

-_let's see if the little doggy likes being fucked-_

-Ace's face swims before his eyes and the mouth moves, distorted, and says, "You're in a mess, little bird, and the shame is, it's not even your fault."

Kurt heaves, leaning against the wall, one hand thrown out, palm down against the sneer of Evan Taylor the manipulator, Blaine Anderson the dapper evil-

-"He's going to get tricked, little bird, and there's not a thing you can do to stop it."

Kurt staggers over to the door, ears ringing, mind racing, he tried staying calm, he really did, but when someone gets under your skin, like _that_, who knows every little thing about your defence, who manages to rip you apart and make you remember what you have to be scared of-

-_promise me, Kurt. _

Kurt wrenches it open and takes off down the hall.


	4. Day Two part Two

**AUTHOR'S NOTE**

**So, I'm on summer holidays now. Boom.**

**I just want to say THANK YOU to all you readers out there, especially the reviewers, and more importantly, the faithful ones. You guys are wonderful, and without you, I'd have no motivation at all. So here - have some EPIC LOVE - we've reached 100 reviews!**

**JUST KEEP READING, JUST KEEP READING, JUST KEEP READING, READING, READING.**

**Thanks and enjoy,**

**Steph**

* * *

><p>Breakfast is a quiet affair. Some of the boys tend to skip it, lying in, especially the days they have no class, even though most don't bother to turn up to them anyway. It's subdued and sleepy and slightly warm some days, like the central heating is trying to make the atmosphere so fatigue-inducing the boys slump over their trays snoring. The food's not exactly edible, either; the safest thing is usually the cornflakes, and even then they're eaten dry, milk gone sour in the heat and with age. The temptation of more sleep is usually too good to pass up for half-food-half-ground-beetle-juice.<p>

Evan Taylor never misses breakfast.

In his opinion, it's always been the most important meal of the day. Many champions of history defeated their enemies in the morning, using their advantage of a good breakfast for brainpower and the extra edge, or that's what their mum told them, him and Isaac. Now, he suspects it was just to get them to eat it so they wouldn't pass out halfway through a soccer match, but he's never gotten out of the habit. Now it's just him, he needs that energy boost.

He's sat on his own, tray in front of him, the contents of which consist of cereal, toast, and a glass of water next to his packet of cigarettes. He's not eating at the moment, though, just sitting and flicking his lighter in his left hand, the one Isaac gave him the year he gave him one. It's a metallic blue with his initials engraved into the bottom, and it's the last material thing he has to tell him he didn't imagine Isaac, that he wasn't going insane. He stares at the door of the mess hall, waiting.

He doesn't have to wait long.

Sam walks through the doors, hands shoved in jean pockets, and it's amusing how hard he has to try and retain his semblance of authority. Some people just don't exude that natural aura of leadership and charisma that make people want to follow and listen and please and do anything required of them.

Blaine, for example.

But, no, Anderson will get his due, Evan will ensure it.

Sam spots him and starts to walk over. Evan puts the lighter in his pocket, and instead busies himself with eating the toast. No one's ever seen that lighter here, not even Anderson, and Blaine was here for the time of the twin trouble. Evan wants to keep it that way; Isaac's personal, not Warbler business, and it has nothing to do with anyone else here.

"Hey," Sam greets him with as he sits down opposite Evan across the table.

Evan doesn't reply, just chews his toast.

Sam's used to this sort of treatment, though, because he knows _exactly _what Evan thinks of him. He's a big boy, he can cope. He sighs instead, and goes rummaging through his jacket pockets, and doesn't look up when he says, "He ran."

Evan stops chewing and regards Sam. How interesting to him. The little bird, who had braved all sorts of terrible adventures and came out the other side with a few silver lines on his arms and the backs of his thighs, stitches in his eyebrow and a silver tongue to match – had _run away._

How _very _interesting.

Sam finally finds what he was looking for, a piece of folded paper, which has a scrawled _E _on it, underlined by the hand of someone with far better things to do with their time. Sam places it on the table and slides it across until it bumps into Evan's tray, like in a spy movie.

Evan doesn't pick it up. He doesn't move at all. "Flashbacks?"

Sam rolls his eyes, and they move away to gaze around the mess hall with the stare of someone caught between not caring and wanting more. "According to Ace, he reacts strongly to the word _bitch, _and ran out when Ace suggested he make the deal."

"Is he going to?"

"Ace says probably, but by the look on his face I'd say don't count-"

"Is it ready?"

Sam sighs again, and his eyes move back to Evan. "The Warblers are prepared to accept a new deal, and everyone's ready for it, except for Anderson."

"Excellent."

Evan takes a bite of his toast.

Sam fidgets slightly with his jacket, which catches Evan's attention, because if Sam is anything, he's cocky and confident; _nerves _are something he learnt to hide a long time ago. "Evan."

Evan's jaw movements slow, and the toast drops a few centimetres in his hands.

Sam looks _uncomfortable. _"Do you think this is all a bit much?"

Evan doesn't say anything, but his ears start buzzing faintly.

"I mean," the imbecile continues, oblivious to the impending anger, "we could easily overthrow Anderson with a less complicated plan. The new kid could even be in on it. No one has to get hurt."

Evan puts the toast down, fingers steady. He's learnt the tricks, him and Isaac did, to hide their hideous tempers from people, not to overreact and become violent, because that would ruin the illusion of control, and control is power.

"Sam," he says slowly, "the _reason_ we are carrying out a plan of this scale is to ensure that no one gets hurt. Anderson will not get hurt, simply knocked off his pedestal. The rebellious ones will not get hurt, just reminded exactly _who _is in charge of this place. We have to carry out the largest overturning to show that no one can push us around or take us over, because we will run them into the ground and spit on their faces."

Sam's silent for a few moments, and Evan controls his breathing.

"What about the new kid, though?" Sam asks. "What about him getting hurt?"

Evan laughs, and picks up his toast again, looking at it through narrowed eyes and a smirk. "That," he tells Sam, "is exactly the point."

* * *

><p>Blaine manages to crawl out of his bed, and straight onto the floor with a spectacular crash.<p>

It's too early for these shenanigans.

* * *

><p>Caro doesn't think he'll be able to find Kurt this early in the morning.<p>

He's checked their room, and _no one _was in there, which is typical, he thinks bitterly. Trying to find someone, and they're not there. He's checked the communal bathroom, too, although he's not sure Kurt's used it yet, or at all, or will do _at all, _simply because he appears to be a person who values his hygiene far too much. He won't be down in the mess hall, because he didn't want to go down on his own for dinner yesterday and refused point-blank to eat _anything _until Micah had reassured him that yes, the green gloop wasn't just excessive amounts of mould. He can't imagine where _else _he could be.

Stupid Damian. Stupid rebellions and stupid Warblers, all of them, insignificant and _stupid_. Caro would have _never _gotten involved if he didn't think it would make his life here easier.

He sighs dramatically and sweeps his hair out his eyes, traipsing back up the stairs in the dorm, back to his room. Maybe he can curl up for a few hours, avoid having to move much at all, read through his magazines, his mother's look-books from long ago, when she still loved him enough to give them to him once she was finished with them.

Funny how things change.

He gets to his floor, and he pauses for a few seconds, staring into the hallway. There's a fine line between things, he muses to himself, like intelligence and insanity, in control and power-hungry, self-preservation and mindless selfishness, hate and love. They all share the same corridor in the mind, just doorways apart from each other, so easy to wander through the wrong door, mix up the rooms, mistake them for each other. So easy to do, but hard to correct once the mistake is made.

Fine line between an accident and attempted murder, but Caro thinks he managed to pull it off.

Suddenly, a pale-and-brunet blur goes hurtling past him, making strange noises Caro assumes people associate with distress. It thunders past him in the general direction of his room, and if he stays still long enough- yes, there it is, the slamming of a door and the peace in the aftermath.

So, he finished with Ace, then. Caro's glad; he hates to sneak around and plant things that aren't going to be of use later on. To him, it's pointless and a complete waste of his time. He's used to things being a little more _dramatic._

Maybe he'll go pester Micah. That's usually works as a distraction.

* * *

><p>Kurt throws his back against his door, panting, eyes wide, unseeing.<p>

-_no, no, please, no-_

His chest heaves out an involuntary sob, and he throws himself on his bed, fingers gripping into the sheets.

So. Politics.

The Warblers and his… Kurt doesn't know if _friends _is really the right word to use under these circumstances, so _acquaintances _then. They're planning something, something that involves Anderson and this Evan Taylor and him. As a sacrifice. And tricking Anderson.

Unstoppable, Ace said.

The puzzle is still missing gaping pieces, pieces in the shape of a frown or a hole in the fence, a quirked eyebrow, missing roommates in the dead of night, a runaway twin, empty packets of cigarettes and the twinkle of an amber eye. There's information Kurt just doesn't know, and unless he makes an effort to find out, then circumstances will be beyond his control.

A plan that involves everyone that's met Kurt and him being a sacrifice to a power-hungry madman and Anderson not knowing _anything. _

_Leverage, little bird._

Kurt suddenly twists, shoves his hand into the front of his jeans, and pulls out a scrunched-up, tear-stained piece of folded paper out of his pocket. He stares at it for a few, blank moments, before – and _God, _he's _shaking _– flattening it out. It's writing, scrawled, messy handwriting, one that matches the impromptu business card Kurt found under Caro's bed.

_Kurt, _it says, and his stomach does a funny jolt at being addressed directly, _Caro, Micah, Mitch, David and Jack are following orders from a boy who calls himself the Renegade. As you've probably guessed by now, they are also in league with the Warblers. _Yes, Kurt knows that, Ace knows Kurt knows that. _Everyone else obeys them. _Well, so? _Also, you should know that Anderson as your roommate isn't an accident. See, little bird, the easier you make your sacrifice, the quicker everything ends. If you want in on the plan, go see the Renegade. Take this note to Caro, and he'll take you there. _

It's not signed, but it doesn't need to be.

Kurt sighs and rolls onto his back, contemplating.

He has choices now.

Go find Caro, like the note suggests, and go see the Renegade and find out what they're planning.

Do some investigations of his own. See who's telling the truth, and who's blatantly lying.

Ignore it all. Listen to his dad.

_Yeah, that's likely._

* * *

><p>"Hey, Anderson!"<p>

Blaine straightens up from where he's stretching, hand raised to shield his eyes from the early-morning yellow of the sun, and squints in the general direction of the voice. He can just make out a brown leather-clad blur coming towards him from the other side of the field, from the direction of the main buildings, and it sort of makes him feel a bit ill. He drops the hand and sighs, goes back to his stretches. Honestly, the Warblers know not to bother him until he puts the jacket on, and then it's all systems go; he just needs to wake up a bit first.

"Rob," he says, when the boy's close enough to hear the greeting. "Where's Sam?"

Rob shrugs and stuffs his hands into his pockets, eyes on where Blaine's twisting his arms. "Breakfast with the lieutenant, I think."

"Still trying to suck up to him?"

"Something like that." The look in Rob's eye's strange, Blaine muses, tugging on nostalgia somewhere inside of him, in the recesses of his memory, although he can't remember _how _it's a little familiar. "I wanted to talk to you about something."

"Go ahead."

"A request has come in."

_Request. _They're talking about those _deals_ now, the ones that always make Blaine feel sick, rocked to his core, dirty and wrong and broken all over again, every time he sees a hand twist in their hair and yank, or their mouths open and cry. Those noises shouldn't _be _like that, like an _exchange, _like sex instead of money. Why anyone would _request _something like that escapes him.

He lowers his arms anyway, but his face screws up out of habit. "I told you, I want nothing to do with those. It's Taylor's territory."

"Yes, but this one's a little bit specific."

The sick feeling intensifies. "No one's requested _me, _have they?"

Rob frowns. "Not _exactly."_

"Oh, God," Blaine blurts, and turns away. "I told you lot, _no one _requests me. I don't do deals. If I want to get laid, I'll find my own fuck buddy, you got that?"

"Not like that," Rob soothes, laying a hand on Blaine's shoulder, and Blaine can feel the warmth, the sticky sweat through his t-shirt, like a spider web. "Look, you're clearly not awake enough for this yet. I'll come back later, though, yeah?"

Blaine sighs. "Thanks, Rob."

"My pleasure." Rob backs away, and Blaine turns to watch him go, swaggers off like he owns the world, how all the Warblers walk with their hands in their pockets and their chins so far up they look down their noses.

Not long now before he can leave, though.

As the sun rises up and up, closer and closer to the unbearable heat of midday, Blaine continues to punish himself for getting himself stuck in the first place.


End file.
